I Reviewed EVERY Historical Total War Since Rome

what's in a name in the case of Total War it's certainly not peace and prosperity even though that's also part of the series over the past year and a half I've reviewed every historical 3D total war game out there beginning with Rome and ending with a total war Saga Troy despite the latter being part History part mythology in celebrating this achievement I've decided to post every one of these reviews in one on the same video for a true total or historical Marathon I love this series but it's not without his faults as I'm sure you'll find out since these videos were recorded at different times and environments please forgive the varying audio quality other than that I sincerely hope you'll enjoy this journey through Total Wars past and present as we wait for the next Grand historical installment in this series which has changed the entire strategy genre for the past two decades today the carrion Birds Feast but they will Feast upon our enemies not on good Roman flesh I live for scenes like these and was absolutely Blown Away the first time I saw them and of course there's no room without this absolutely fantastic menu screen it's hard to believe it now but there was a time when I had no idea Total War Games even existed before putting thousands of hours into Paradox and Total War Games I stuck to the simpler life and luckily I found myself in the Glory Days of movie licensed RTS games getting absolutely psyched playing my way through the campaigns of Battle for Middle Earth and Star Wars Empire at War but one day everything changed the classic Rome Total War trailer of a commander made me as hyped as a 13 year old can be and soon I too was playing as none other than the red Romans we all know are the one true Roman faction but what was it that made ROM Turtle were so legendary so awesome so unique in the minds of the fans I'm about to tell you but first consider liking the video and subscribing to the channel if you enjoy my content as I'd love to get to know even more of you in an age where Total War Games look like this or even this honestly it might seem weird that Rome ever looked good but my dude and to dance back in its Heyday Rome was revolutionary not just for these absolutely sick Graphics of course but for the entirety of the experience Rome offered a grand campaign focusing first and foremost on the Romans what absolutely blew me away was the sandboxiness of it all whereas before I was playing campaigns that were mostly scripted or at least railroaded Rome Total War was completely open but perhaps not entirely historical instead of one we got three Roman factions in red green and blue and they all had just as much beef with each other as they did with other countries out there the first thing that miss you in Rome is that gorgeous campaign map it's an entire world out there from Britannia in the Northwest to Mesopotamia in the East all surrounded by that beautiful campaign music I honestly still believe this looks good and I think it comes down to that Timeless art style it's colorful and soft but not cartoony back in the early the 2000s this was as realistic looking as strategy games got and seeing as it was the first fully 3D Total War it's just really impressive like look at the detail here we not only have varied Landscapes from northern European forests to Mediterranean coasts to Middle Eastern deserts but we also have unique monuments and wonders they don't only look amazing either as they provide bonuses for entire faction if you control them and you get these awesome little videos whenever you capture them back in these days every city had the potential to become a massive one with every building available everywhere except for ports which require a Seaside location this means there are no provinces no inherent to minor settlements but complete freedom in which cities make it big is determined entirely by population sciences and your investments into them I always found the system more rewarding than the province isn't beginning with Rome 2. as this one just made it feel more like you actually developed your entire country and the lack of restrictions in terms of how many building slots you had enhance the affiliate the same goes for building roads and farms and ports and I really enjoy this level of micromanagement the awesome thing was that your population even impacted your potential Army and City size you always needed a certain amount of people to upgrade your status to higher levels but the more people you made into Soldiers the Lesser were to drive that economic growth similarly disbanding soldiers put those men back into the population pool which also effectively allowed for controlled migration from one city to another this is actually such an awesome feature when you think about it but as to my knowledge never been implemented again even though Rome Total War is mostly a Sandbox experience we do have a mechanic which to a certain extent determines your campaigns let's send it I told you previously that Rome was divided into red green and blue but there's another an unplayable faction known as the purple Romance the Senate and the people of Rome this is the faction actually in control of Rome and the Senate is an entire mechanic in and of itself here the Senate May love or despise you and we see that the same goes for the people in your realm the being loved by both is important especially because being loved by the Senate means your characters might be appointed to positions in the Senate which grant them various powerful modifiers and because if it goes too low the Senate might demand that you kill off your faction leaders or even declare war on you even though it's a rather simple premise I really like how it's done the Senate has its own diplomatic opinion of other factions and will often dislike the factions the Romans are at war with or unlike the ones that have positive diplomatic agreements with in turn they will often give you missions to conquer foreign enemy lands or conduct hostile campaigns against them some are more natural than others however and it can be frustrating when an ask you to blockade is part Import in only 5 turns when you're playing as the Julia gaining favor with the Senate is good in so far as it brings you powerful Senate positions but at some point the Senate will dislike you for becoming too popular especially if you gain the love of the people at one point you will be able to declare war on the Senate and March on Rome itself fighting each of the other Roman factions at the same time the Roman senate has sent its Army against us do not fear them for they will die as quickly as other men even though it might be a bit of a crude system I love it and you're guaranteed a late game challenge every time of course there are more factions here than just Rome and by default these are unlocked once you defeat them back in the day I had absolutely no issue with this and I saw it as an incredibly smart way of unlocking more of the game as you went I don't like achievements in a way this made it possible to play as Rome's enemies and adversaries like Carthage the Gauls and a variety of factions around the world depending on where you are they offer entirely different Vibes in Rome with different religions buildings music and units the only thing that kinda sucks is that they don't really feel as unique there are no real missions for example no equivalent government mechanics like the Senate system and so it's basically a conquered the world game with few other aspects whereas the Romans have the Civil War as an in-game mechanic the End Game Challenge of every other fashion is kind of just meeting and fighting the Romans themselves who of course consists of four factions including the Senate it is fun playing the non-roman stone if only for the flavor and the various starting locations around the world but Rome is definitely where the bulk of the game's features lie the campaign was not the only thing that hooked me to Rome Total War of course as the battles were arguably the single most awesome feature of the game being not just an upgrade from previous Total Wars in terms of the beautiful Graphics Rome was also such a marked step up from any other RTS out there for me I mean whereas Star Wars Empire at War gave me a few dozen or perhaps 100 units to mess around with Rome gave me thousands on the massive battlefields or indeed in the cities themselves I imagine I was not alone in wanting to play battles that mimic those in Lord of the Rings for example and Rome actually allowed me to do that it's almost crazy what do you think about it just how far ahead Rome was versus other games in terms of that epic scale and breathtaking visuals and the Fantastic and epic soundtrack made this experience a Godly mix the battles of Rome also taught you rather well I'd say about the wars of the ancient world the Romans use tactics and things like pillow tossing to peel away their enemies before engaging whereas the goals were a bit less organized but facing the Greeks is harder as those massive bikes are really hard to deal with head on others still prefer to use mobile Cavalry which to emerge static Roman army could be devastating this meant you have to use different tactics based on which enemy you fought and it was just as much fun every time now in hindsight there's of course many things that are not optimal about Rome's battles such as pathfinding for example that's kind of the luxury of being a kid isn't it you don't really notice those things as much or you simply don't care because of how awesome the overall experience is this game allowed me to experiment with so many Yoon combinations hitting the best of Rome against the best from elsewhere and that feeling of beginning somewhere in the world but 100 turns later fighting in completely different and foreign environments and is something I just absolutely adore room throttle War allowed us to play from the Punic Wars around 270 BC to the time of Emperor Augustus although none of these events were people actually made appearances in the game as they historically did this is the classic Rome experience of course and I will always cherish it Rome offered even more the Alexander expansion offered a somewhat tighter experience where we actually played as a historical Alexander character fighting the Persians I did not own this myself back in the day but tried it much later and I have to say that I never really liked it all that much it mostly comes down to the map which kinda is just so tiny and weird looking that you think it was a joke or something the expansion I absolutely loved however was the last one barbarian Invasion now I bought the wrongful World Gold Edition way back when that package came with both the original game and the bi the back of the box says something like take your Roman Empire into the days of the fall of Rome or something and I literally thought that this meant that the Empire I had made could be converted into this new scenario this wasn't exactly the case instead Barbarian Invasion takes place in the 4th Century after the split of the Roman Empire into East and West in the instead of beginning small we now begin massive these two empires now control about half the world between them both of these must now deal with the titular Barbarian invasions including the Hans and assassinates but the Western Roman Empire is certainly the horror of action here public order issues and a lack of money absolutely devastate your Empire unless you act quickly but no matter what you do it's going to take a while before the Empire is safe once more a reason for this is the entirely new mechanic of religion the Roman Empire struggled with the battle between Christianity and the old Roman Pantheon and both cities and Generals will swear loyalty to either one in turn you can now build churches and use various journals to turn the tide of faith for either side although doing is all can be difficult if your Empire is divided in faith the faction Leader's Faith also means a lot as that is the effective State religion each City also has a dominant religion but differing from the state's religion gives that City minus 10 public order which can definitely hurt if the city's loyalties are wavering already I've always loved Barbarian for that challenge as the Romans and I think it does a really great job of portraying that era of course there are other factions here as well so once again it's possible to do your best to topple the Romans either as a relatively Mighty assassin is in the East or the various Barbarian factions in the north the complete Rome Total War experience kinda gave us all of the most interesting areas of Rome then and even though the original game will always remain the classic experience Barbarian Invasion turned out to be a fantastic campaign that I never knew I wanted but one which I suddenly never want to be without Rome Total War might be old being perhaps the most important reason as to why I got a fully remastered version in 2021 but its foundations linger in the total war series to this day and shows just how revolutionary and awesome this 2004 title actually was it's been almost 10 years since the release of Rome 2 and indeed almost 20 since release of Rome and I everyone am more than ready to see it will war room 3. is Medieval to the perfect total war game or is it actually trash if one game has to find the entirety of the total war series it has to come down to none other than medieval 2. releasing in November 2006 Medieval 2 assumed the throne left by Rome another massive Gemma Medieval 2 both built on the excellent foundations of Rome that introduced entirely new mechanics itself and together they made for the total war game I could not get enough of despite a few flaws here and there if you're like me and absolutely love this game make sure to subscribe to the channel and like this video because this is personal if you ask any fan of strategy games what their favorite time period is you'll likely get a majority saying the Middle Ages and it's not weird really the Middle Ages is all over media and is the epicenter of conflicts and state formations that still impact us today we're talking an age of awesome Knights and castles Kings and princesses new empires and old the all importance of religion and conflicts based on them and much more Medieval 2 encompasses all of this at least to some degree while of course keeping to the total war formula and that leads us to the first thing that meets Us in this beautiful game the main menu my God I spent a lot of time looking at this thing and not just for The Bold and dark color palette Total War used to do this thing where the main menu was animated with soldiers marching forever towards war or into heaven none of them recognizable by face and yet all of them a part of a larger whole what made it perfect was the soundtrack a mix of Tomb actually which had the mood for the entire experience ends and you can tell just how much I love this by the fact that I'm spending time talking about the literal main menu here Medieval 2 like in a lot of aspects funnels in the footsteps of Rome in the beginning we have a mere 5 available playable factions here but they're likely the ones players will want to begin with anyway at least perhaps the European players which this game was obviously targeted at first and foremost honestly I don't know which faction of these five I like the most but I know my most played is the Holy Roman Empire and for a very simple reason [Music] greetings Kaiser man Kaiser Kaiser medieval 2's foundations are recognizable even now almost exactly 16 years later you move armies around the map and have cities dotting it but there are a few key differences here namely the systems of the total Wars of old before the days of Rome 2 of which middle 2 certainly is a part the campaign map is your playground immutable too and somehow even though this is a game from 2006 I still find it beautiful to look at I can't really put my finger on it but there is something about the total warm-ups that pre-day drum too that just seems clearer and more readable to me don't get me wrong I love the map itself in rom 2 but with Medieval 2 for example there's something about the colors about the overview about the lack of certain effects or flickering that is just much easier to look at even though the map is rather small for today's standards it continues to be densely populated with cities and hot spots and I love the innovation of trade goods which you can actually use by placing Merchant agents on them they trade cards and ships further make this map so good to look at and I would never want to be without a sense of life this brings to the experience it'll crescend those with the inclusion of the beautiful soundtrack and I maintained that Medieval 2 offers the best music in the entire series even to this day I still believe the middle 2 map is timeless and even though mods have made this map so much more beautiful and detailed I still just love this basic version what's especially awesome here is how mutable 2 deals with scope the game takes place between 1080 and 1530 a decent chunk of time but the vast majority of the game Europe North Africa and the near East is everything we know and it's the focus of the game but much later in the game something quite incredible happens America is discovered and we suddenly have an entire new theater of war to fight over it's magically hidden at the very edge of the original map and even though the Americas is certainly underdeveloped design wise I love this feature for its sheer existence a lot happens during this campaign to make it so much more Dynamic than many other Total Wars out there however massive events like the Mongol invasion the black plague and the invention of gunpowder turns the medial to campaign on its Hand by not only introducing new threats but also ways of dealing with them the cities of middle 2 is where everything happens not only is it where you tax your population on a city by City basis but every city has the ability to race virtually every building in the game this means there's no Province system no Province capital and smaller Villages instead every city has the potential to be tiny Villages and massive Metropolis building roads Farms markets churches and ports to facilitate growth and public order because of these decentralized and granular system I preferred so much more to the province system with restrictive building slots as Medieval 2 continues to provide me that sense of role play on a strategic scale having actual population numbers Ace is feeling further and the various menus provides even more insight into higher cities and towns are doing religion is of course an important part of the Middle Ages and Medieval 2 is no exception every faction belongs to a religion the contrary to Rome's Barbarian Invasion or Total War Attila there's no internal conversion here every character belongs to either Catholicism Orthodoxy Islam paganism or they're simply Heretics characters cannot convert unless their priests and become heretical but they do have a piety mechanic which essentially tells you how religious they are on the other hand cities can be converted they're done so through either religious buildings of other faiths or through missions by priests and imams since religion is directly tied to public order it's vital to make good use of religious agents what's more though is that Medieval 2 offers arguably the most powerful war mechanic in all of Total War Crusades and jihad's and this ties into the Poke mechanic it's actually kind of funny because when you look into it the people and Cardinal system of Medieval 2 is almost a shot for shot copy paste of the Senate system in Rome here is a life group of high piety prayers are made Cardinals this means that any Catholic country with good enough priests May house a cardinal this is important because having Cardinals and being faithful Christians I listening to the pope and building churches gives you cross points the more crosses the more the pope likes you and the less likely you are being excommunicated by the Pope seeing as the pope comes from one of the Catholic countries being at war with that country will have the pope hate you and vice versa so there's definitely politics and stake involved here but when the pope dies one of the Cardinals has a chance of becoming the new pope after a vote that gives you a chance to take revenge and get back into the good graces of his Holiness the pope is never directly controlled by you though but your crosses do let you influence him with enough on them you can ask the pope to call a crusade against one of the many eligible cities around the world and it's not just Jerusalem either but any City deemed valid be it a Muslim or excommunicated Christian one might be granted The Crusade is a massively important event in medieval 2. as it calls on every Catholic Nation to take up the cross and Advance on the target City and faction every General with at least eight units may join the Crusade giving them a large boost to movement points powerful traits and allows them to recruit special Crusaders mercenaries to path their armies further importantly the Army does not cost any golden upkeep but the units might deserve if you're not making enough progress towards the Crusade Target every turn but the best thing about the Crusade is of course the event video which is just nothing short of legendary foreign the Holy Bible May preach peace but when it is Christendom itself that is threatened then it is every Christian's duty to defend all that is hoping his Holiness the pope has called a crusade to reclaim the holy lands from the Infidel who would deny Christian pilgrims their right to visit the holy places it is time for the armies of Christendom to put aside their differences and unite Hunter one Banner the sign of the cross a and give back God's children what is rightfully theirs or die trying Catholic Nations aren't the only ones with religious War fun times though as Muslims have the Jihad there is no Pope in Islam but every Muslim Nation with a powerful enough Imam make allergy hard on an Infidel City and it works the same way as the Crusades once called even though I love playing as Byzantium it's kind of sad that they have no way of joining in on the fun but then again the byzantines don't really need all that to have fun as we know there just is no party like a Byzantine party as a Byzantine party don't stop and that's mostly because a campaign is one long struggle to retake the Empire both in the East and the West Medieval 2 enhances your campaigns further by adding missions and guilds missions might be given to you by Council of nobles to conquer a foreign city or initiate diplomatic relations with another faction annual interns in your gold if you've done well the pope might also ask you to build churches or stop Waring against another faction to keep the peace between Catholics one of my personal favorite features though is the guild system Medieval 2 has a system where guilds belonging to one aspect of Society will offer their services to you for example a merchant Guild might offer to establish a guild in a city focusing on economics and trade a Thieves Guild might do the same in a place where you've recruited many spy or assassin agents and my personal favorite either the Knights Templar hospitaler Santiago orthotonic Knights May found an order in your cities letting you recruit their Knights if you continue to invest into particular Fields they may offer to upgrade this Guild and even though there may be several small or medium science skills out there there can only be one Guild headquarters per Guild in the entire world and I love the race towards achieving that the Medieval 2 campaign is not without its faults of course the AI is unpredictable at best with certain factions like Milan heart covered it would be absolute backstabbers and Portugal often showing up as Invaders in Ireland other than for trade rights or map information you never want to rely on the AI too much either in terms of historical accuracy Medieval 2 is quite a massive sinner here we have factions like a fully centralized Holy Roman Empire a Spain and the egregious lack of Norway even though it's on the map this follows again in the future of Rome where a certain present or modern take on this Medieval World simplifies the history ideally all of this would be fixed in a medieval 3 where our faction diversity and depth would pay this time period the complexity and attention to detail it deserves I'd also like to see a much more intricate religious system an actual feudal system portraying the massive amounts of vassals under more or less powerful Kings and Emperors formable Nations it returned to the individual City system and away from an immersive provinces and government systems actually make it a vastly different experience to play as Catholics Orthodox Muslims or even pagans but the one place where medievable to steal excels like arguably no other is in its battles how creative assembly managed to create its best system ever and ever truly reprogated I don't know the Medieval 2 battles just feel amazing and it comes down to a handful of points Medieval 2 battles look amazing for its time each unit was now individually modeled amongst a handful making room Total War look positively ancient in comparison but while age has all the visuals somewhat the game still feels great Eunice really look like they are fighting each other mixing between generic animations and scripted killing blows making for battle scenes perhaps only matched by Shogun 2. these visuals and the sense of progression was further enhanced by the fact that what happened on the campaign so clearly influenced the units on the battlefield not only can Eunice level up but we can upgrade their arms and armor and these upgrades have an actual visual change on the battlefield this is actually insane and such a beautiful detail and again has never been re-implemented in a total war game since a massive shame to say the least although perhaps not as relevant in later time periods further medieval 2's battle maps somehow felt so organic and realistic the locations you've had reflected those on the campaign map an inclusion of two different types of Siege battles be it cities which were much easier to Siege or actual castles which would come to house not only one but two inner walls or absolute nightmares to attack these of course were different on campaign as well so cities were economic powerhouses while castles were war-like bastions it was all fun as heck and actually demanded more of you since taking a castle meant fighting a toughest Nails Battle Siege battles were made so much better than in Rome by the way actually due to better pathfinding but also because again things just felt better Eunice fired from the walls those massive trebuchets toss fiery rocks like no other and due to the technology developments what began as impenetrable citadels developed over time into something we can overcome due to the shared power of the almighty Canon I mean heck Medieval 2 has us begin with peasant armies but end with heavily armored Knights and even musket carrying Gunners symbolizing how Dynamic and all-encompassing a time period between 1080 and 1530 really was I also appreciate the difference in yuna's Perfection I will obviously see many of the same units all over Western Europe for example focusing on Knights and the like but we have important differences England will support the best longbowmen France and the Holy Roman Empire offer the best Knights and in the East Egypt the Turks and the Mongols deliver some impressive light and Ultra calendar units making for a diverse Battlefield as long as you focus on your strengths something I personally miss a lot in the latest reward games by the way are the individual unit abilities I loved having my spearmint assume different formations and have arshas put down spikes and I just have no idea why this has been removed a game where it could be extremely useful is in Troy where heavy spearmen could make excellent use of such abilities but alas medieval 2's battles have so many strengths then despite his age and creative assembly desperately needs to take a good hard look at the cell to re-implement some or all of its features Medieval 2 continues to be in my personal top 3 pro war games of all time because of its fine wine aging Rome has not aged nearly as well an average launch so many games were either buggy or Limited in scope the meaning will do struck a near perfect balance between it all and the sheer amount of mods out there which greatly enhances the game in every way by the way chose just how much this game was loved and how much room there was for modding a lot of people today hate automotive's vanilla game but you know I replayed it for this video and I have to say it was as fun as ever one of my campaigns was England I began by establishing a foothold on the home Islands while I also went for Brittany France wanted to beef but of course I bought them back and soon we talk face again but not before a grand Crusade was called and ahead of for Jerusalem to reconquer the Holy Land it reminded me of just how great this game still plays how the lighting complements the battlefield time and time again and that feeling of expanding your cities going from seeing little trade to a whole lot of tiny ships and cards continues to be a magical feeling I will say again that the AI is kinda weird Dalton for example just had an entire Army by York for like a hundred turns back off Papa to take a liking to your lambs and daughters I compared to the later games the turn times really fly by but it still delivers that wonderful experience albeit in a smaller format than we might be used to today Medieval 2 was enhanced with the Kingdom's expansion a perfect addition I've covered before in two other videos most notably for iPad both middle 2 and kingdoms are now released on handheld devices by the way so if you feel like you want the full Total War experience on the go then Medieval 2 offers this as well even with enhanced UI capabilities and the ability to now actually survey your cities on the battle map in peacetime in hindsight middle 2 might not have been objectively perfect before its time and for a history obsessed teen it really was and if we ever get immediable 3 I pray that CA really takes everything the fans love from this game understand what they did so well and try to recreate that feeling amen foreign [Music] thank you [Music] I've never had this drink before in my life you know my go-to drink from eatable two kingdoms is always Pepsi or Coke I guess you're kind of interchangeable aren't they as long as they're diet of course but I went to my local store I looked for a canned Coke as I wanted that cool Fizz sound you know and what did I find no canned Cokes what I did find though was a Java Monster Energy drink with Swiss chocolate flavor and I picked it all because of the cool coat of arms on it I mean it looks kind of medieval like right kind of swissy you know kind of like those Rebels up in those mountains over there come to think of it I guess I never really wore a suit for medievable too either unless of course I was playing on Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Ramadan a lot of days I suppose and I guess when you mention it I never really wore sunglasses for beautiful two kingdoms either so yeah but here's the thing Medieval 2 kingdoms actually deserves all of them and that's why I'm having this unidentified drink today for you my friends I guess what I'm saying is that I really love medievable two kingdoms and as you will find out in this video there's a lot of reasons for that so even though this isn't my longest video it is on one of those games that I love the absolute most and before you start I think it's time for some delicious Java Monster Energy Swiss chocolate skull that's horrible it's become quite the norm for Total War Games to receive a handful of smaller DLC packs and a few larger expansions that add content and new campaigns to the game but there was a time in Total War history when the games received no more than one or two expansion packs and during that time the only expansion from mutable 2 name the kingdoms was truly revolutionary it brought four entirely uni campaigns at the same time allowing us to take part in some of the most exciting conflicts of the age the kingdoms even brought with the total War's most game changing feature ever in my opinion namely a Hot Seat Mechanic which would change Total War for me forever all of these points are the subjects of this video and if you're as excited as me to take a look back at Medieval 2 kingdoms and why such an amazing expansion I really hope you leave a like and consider becoming a channel member as your support means the world to me thank you so much to my current patrons as well who make these videos possible and now medievable 2 Total War Kingdoms according to the legendary Total War scholar Andy's take AKA myself there's a before and then after the medievable 2 Kingdom's expansion before kingdoms Total War had only really delved into larger maps and locations sure you got much of Europe and the Middle East but the land masses themselves weren't the biggest yeah looking at you Alexander's Greece kingdoms was the first Total War expansion to truly dive into smaller locations but expand the scope of the land masses yes I do know Viking invasions did the same but kingdoms does it on a whole nother scale so quiet you kingdoms took a deep dime like never before into the Medieval World of Total War offering four different campaigns in one package and let's start with a banger shall we the Crusades campaign man as a teen this campaign was so flipping awesome it even came around the same time as Kingdom of Heaven did which was such a perfect mashup I would play the Crusades campaign while Kingdom of Heaven was on TV and man those were the days oh and this is still this campaign takes place during perhaps the quintessential period of the Medieval Era and begins right before the Third Crusade we find ourselves solely on the border between Europe and Asia here as the campaign map stretches from Constantinople in the west to bang that in the East and from Georgia in the north to Egypt in the South it's such a beautiful map at that and you'll definitely feel the different vibe when playing as the Orthodox byzantines in the north much love much respect for the Orthodox byzantines [Music] or the eye of the Egyptians in the South but the star of the show arguably Remains the kingdom of Jerusalem the Christian Crusader state established after the first crusade a hundred years prior to the campaign itself along with the principality of Antioch they are the only new factions in the campaign as you could actually play as the byzantines Egypt and the Turks in the original Medieval II campaign as well I just find that so much come together in this campaign the music has been changed to sound much more Middle Eastern the map looks warm and sunny and the fact that we're only located in the East gives the whole campaign a sense of being in Far Away lands compared to the original Grand campaign part of the fun of the Kingdom's expansionist is that you're not really starting from scratch as you do in Middleville 2. your series are larger from the beginning and so are your armies even offering you knights from the get-go the Crusades campaign offers you the ranking guards as ambition themes for example much love much respect for The Branding guards coulombs for Egypt right from the start or Knights of Jerusalem for that Kingdom one of the coolest aspects of Kingdoms is that it also adds special characters and events that never occurred in the original campaign Egypt begins with a legendary Sultan Saladin and to simulate the Third Crusade the Crusader stance receive emerging armies from the Homeland so Richard the lionheart becomes a navigable character for example heeding the core of Christendom two of Europe's greatest Kings Richard the first of England and second of France have arrived in the Holy Land ready to lead the Third Crusade to glory and help restore the kingdom of heaven in addition you should never feel safe as the byzantines as a certain Fourth Crusade will pop up at the historically appropriate time and threaten to destroy everything you hold there if you're not careful uh much hate much disrespect for The Fourth Crusade uh gross as I've stated several times on this channel one of my favorite Total War memories and the one feature that made me play these games 10 times as much as I normally would have is the Halsey mechanic halseyt is a feature in many strategy games that allows you to play with several people on the same computer at once it's a perfect feature for turn-based strategy games because you can actually take turns playing so it doesn't really diminish the experience the only caveat is that you can't play battles against your fellow players but that's an insignificant price to pay either way haltseat allowed me and my friends to cooperate as a crusader States and the Byzantine Empire at the same time preparing for hostile invasions and other dangers and it really made this campaign that much more exciting oh my God let me tell you I have spent thousands of hours immediable two kingdoms just because of Hot Seat every evening every weekend me my brother and my cousin will come together eat Indian food drink Pepsi and play some medievable two kingdoms obviously often with mods but the awesome thing with kingdoms was a Halsey was actually implemented for every mod out there made for kingdoms meaning that all of a sudden we could all play Third age stainless steel or any other Kingdom's mod at the same time and that was bonkers it's extremely hard to say which of the Kingdom's campaigns I love the most the Crusades or this next one which really took more familiar factions to the next level Britannia a land of emerald Isles a land of Kings a land of War England King Henry sits upon a hungry Throne thirsty for more land [Music] foreign s Warriors happy to pay the blood price for their ambitions Britannia one Realm five Kings Total War oh the Britannia campaign and the soundtrack which is a so beautifully iconic questions the Britannia campaign takes place solely in the British Isles on a then absolutely massive map of England Wales Scotland Ireland and yes the Glorious Islands held by Norway this campaign felt extra close to me because Norway had never been a playable faction in any Total War Game I'd ever played now it is true that Viking Invasion once again for the original medieval didn't fight include Norway itself which would have made Britannia even better but I'm not one to complain here Britannia felt Lively and colorful and for such a small place it actually housed many different factions all clearly distinguishable in terms of units Specialties challenges and starting locations playing as England made you feel like a Grand Empire yet one struggling to keep your own kingdom intact while keeping the Norwegians and Scots at Bay while at the same time trying to hold on to unruly territory in Ireland the Scots on the other hand is a minor but established faction capable of holding their own and advancing on England should they want to do so under the Norwegians located quite all over the North is if action relying on the C for protection but if you're able to consolidate its armies can be made into quite a powerful force here too we have special and awesome events such as the emergence of William Wallace for the Scots which will fire depending on several factors Norway which will receive reinforcements from the Homeland and England can send Prince Edward on a crusade which when he returns brings home a crusading army along with much more experience the battles were fun too and I really like how they made these factions rely on different strengths the English of course had their nice and Calvary while the Scots rely on their Noble Highland Pikeman the Norwegians offer heavy infantry carrying two-handed swords the walls have excellent Bowman and the Irish serve up some mean Skirmish units that can tear any army apart from afar the battles remain fun because of these unique faction strengths and weaknesses and I think that's crucial to give such a small location this much spice Britannia is definitely a somewhat smaller campaign than the Crusades yet one with just as much personality I particularly love the updated Castle models here which is something that was never change for the Crusades campaign for some reason I really think some of the genius of the Britannia under Crusades campaign are these smaller changes like in the music or the castle designs because even though there's not that much new in the game audio visual tweaks like these really makes you feel like a different viable together and I think changes like these are kind of what's lacking in the newer Total War expansions to be honest now comes the campaign I find to be the least exciting yet Walnut still has something to offer my least favorite is the Teutonic Campaign which is centered around the Baltic Sea here the Teutonic order which a crusade against the pig in lithuanians who must either withstand the Catholics or accept conversion but there are other playable factions here too the Danes in the north have the ability to form the kalmar union if they conquer all of Scandinavia Baines I'm kidding you Danes this is for you okay and abroad in the East gives you the chance to take the principality further west the tutorial campaign definitely feels like the darkest one if only for the subject matter itself but I also feel like it's the blandest perhaps due to the many factions taken straight from Manila the map which looks rather hastily put together or perhaps the setting itself and now comes the last campaign but definitely not the least Innovative in fact the Americas campaign is perhaps the most standardish of them all offering a campaign of massive differences [Music] of the new world and men dream of riches glory and Conquest land is home to the Fearsome and decadent Aztecs a people who appease their great sun god with hearts torn from the chests of their enemies and enemies the Aztecs have are plenty a new enemy sails on the horizon bearing steel and marching under the Holy Cross to Spain the new world is a Land of Hope a land where the holy word is delivered on the end of a sword here you get to play as the Aztecs and the Mayans two Native American factions that play quite like the old world factions but with different strengths and weaknesses the Apache tribe to the north are perhaps the most interesting year offering various light infantry and Cavalry troops yet once it can actually make use of Western weapons and then there's Spain the faction with the best soldiers but also the least men meaning one has to be clever to survive further since the entirety of the map is Uncharted Territory to each of the factions much of the campaign map is shrouded in complete darkness until it's been explored meaning that the America's campaign offers a lot more mystery and surprise than the others the vastly different units and fighting styles including the late aerial units of the Spanish conquistadors which include gunpowder units and cannons really makes this one of the most dynamic battlefields in the entire game and I love that kingdoms actually included an America's Campaign which in many ways is a poetic way to close up of this game and its era a land where Empires are born a land of Total War this campaign really makes you feel like horrible Spanish explorers and brave Native American defenders in many ways kingdoms placed just like the original campaign adding very little in terms of actual campaign mechanics or features but what it does add is noticeable especially because it's so in your face detailed to maps of important flashpoints of the Medieval Era cool new events and characters that changed up campaigns especially the first time you play them is a big deal add some cool new factions and the fact that each of these campaigns are much more intense than the original Grand campaign and you have yourself a handful of campaigns that are perfect to play alone or indeed with your friends in haunted mode which I just so wish would make a return to the total war series if I add One Plea to ca it would be to re-implement Halsey for Total War yes I guess it's all fine and good with multiplayer campaigns and stuff but not everyone has a beastly computer you know and not everyone's significant other owns a gaming PC either so you know Halsey please Hot Seat yes Hot Seat kingdoms is so beloved by the fans for a reason it not only brought so much new content to an already Legendary game but allowed us to for the first time play Total War campaigns with friends and for that it's probably one of the best Total War expansion packs ever made and it's well worth playing even now the Year 2007 was a great year for Total War and now you might ask why there were no new Total War Games in 2007 Andy what the heck are you even talking about man you might just say and you'd be partially right 2007 was the year of meetable 2's amazing Kingdom's expansion it was a year where medieval 2 was elevated to the next stage where the mods flourished and the future seemed so bright 2007 was also the year of the announcement of a total war game which would signal a shift in Total War development and game philosophy and from which we still see lingering effects today this video is all about impartial War the game which is both beloved and hated by Total War fans there are many reasons for why one might feel either way brought back in 2009 when the game released and now in 2022 an entire 13 years later well I've been playing Empire off and on ever since and despite not being my personal favorite total war game it's ironically the game in the series I have the second most playtime in on Steam and that's why we're back here for for the newcomers and the old fans alike to ask the age-old question is Empire Total War worth it in 2022 we will be reviewing the game's mechanics features the big ups and downs and even the missing content all while factoring in two of The Game's biggest mods for those who want even more in the game I made a similar video a year ago but that was more of a retrospective and I figured Empire deserved its very own review as well and my friend if that sounds good to you I really hope you leave a like and if you want to support the channel it would mean the world if you'd consider supporting the channel on patreon or as a channel member wherever sent me it goes back into supporting the channel and now Empire Total War in 2022 Empire Total War takes place in the 18th century and portrays more or less the entire Century as it unfolds one of the biggest selling points of empire was that he promised to take the total war series not only into an entirely new time frame but also bring the series into a more modern and revolutionary New Age you'll see exactly what I mean as we go but the size advancements and scope of Empire becomes evident as soon as you open the game there is a sizeable amount of actions here all present from the get-go the faction selection screen also reveals another aspect of Empire namely the global focus of this game no longer is the focus solely on Europe and the Middle East the factions all the way over in India are present here and since some of the European factions are colonial empires they stretch all the way to the Americas all of this is of course reflected in the campaign map where things really start to get crazy this shot right here is when I understood how far Total War heart comes into mutable too only a few years prior don't get me wrong I still think the middle 2 map is gorgeous in its own way but it is sadly beginning to show its age in more ways than one the Empire map though not so much as I honestly feel like it remains one of the most beautiful campaign maps to date and somehow still manages to give other games a very good run for their money everything looks soft and sharp at the same time we have some fantastic depth of field effects and trees and coastlines both remain good looking my favorite things here though are probably a mix of two things first the oceans themselves which are massive and just still makes me feel warm inside by looking at it and second are the flags and Banners of our generals there's so much new technology in Empire and this is one of them creative assembly essentially created an entirely new engine for realistic looking Flags which at least look as if they're responding to wind a massive leap away from those static banners of the prior injuries but the beauty of this map isn't the only good thing about it the scope of Empires map is equally important in explaining why the game itself is so beloved you see Empire's map is the largest in Total War history by one standard of measurement namely how much of the world it covers from newly included Iceland and Norway in the north we also stretch much further east now including Persia and even the entirety of India over in the west we can play all over the Americas on a separate theater of war that really makes his campaign come together as so much of this map is ocean this leads into an entirely New Concept of smaller maps that are entirely naval-centric there are no real provinces here but these Maps instead carry trade goods where you can send your ships to in addition to the vast oceans which cover each part of the map these trade Maps make for some unique hotspots and for naval-centric Powers really shows you to Showcase how powerful your Fleet really is Empire also University in other parts of the campaign namely its Administration features Empire was the first Total War to offer a technology tree compared to those who today it may look simple but it's arguably one of the best in the entire series to this day the reason for this is that instead of only offering minor increases to various stats Empire's Tech Tree actually unlocks technology this means that in order to actually gain significant advantages over your enemies or need to Simply keep up in the arms race you actually need to pay attention to this as simple Innovations like bayonets and New Cannon shell types make enormous differences on the battlefield even buildings must be unlocked here but you can only do so by building and maintaining universities and this brings us to one of my personal favorite Empire Total War features the decentralized provinces Empire offers large cities as before and serve as your main Avenues of establishing armies and administration but the difference now is that each province also offers many smaller towns and resource locations these are scattered across the world and not only serve as opportunities for faster technology research Church through universities but also as possible Farms factories and even ports for increased trade it's such a fantastic feature that was only really replicated in Napoleon and Shogun too but because of the scaling Empire it always seemed to function the best here other than the gameplay Innovations they represent I just love how they make the entire map feel so much more alive and as a vast number of hot spots and tactical location one must both defend an attack in this way instead of just having a simple raid option like you do in the later games you know how to actually go in and raid enemy settlements what's more is that there are a ton such settlements that can emerge in the game depending on the settlement growth and I absolutely love that Empire retains the realistic population numbers of the previous games other aspects of Empire are for debate whether they are good or not but I definitely think there are at least good sides to them the trade system has been severely revamped meaning that every resource now has its own value and depending on the amount available on the flip side you can only ever maintain a certain amount of trade routes depending on your amount on level of ports now personally I think the system is fun as it makes trade routes more valuable and makes building trade boards a strategic choice but it definitely gamifies trade so it's less open and free than immediable too for example additionally we have a completely new government mechanic with ministers and actual opposition it's a cool concept that they also have various traits but I definitely think the feature is underused and in need of a revamp to really feel immersive and exciting you kind of never have to actually deal with the government so that's kind of a bummer there's also no family tree which is definitely lame in an age where royal families and succession wars were a real thing lastly the diplomacy system is now much more streamlined with a diplomacy menu rather than having us move diplomats around the system works well enough in Empire because it was a time of more established representation in foreign countries but this system has since been used in games like Rome too and I think that's a very bad choice likewise the city system has been completely overhauled as well we can no longer build what we want when we want because Empire series always come with a certain amount of building slots in them in the later games this system gets fleshed out somewhat with the option of many more types of buildings to balance the cities out but in Empire the offering of building types is just so low to begin with which makes for a less immersive and interesting campaign it's a common idea that the total war titles especially on the campaign side have been dumbed down since medievable 2. in some ways this arguably goes for Empire as well but as you can see there's actually a lot that was added but while I would say that many of the most important things remain intact there are indeed a few very disappointing aspects of empire for one there are no real events in the game even though we get many notifications about things happening and this brings me to another video of mine namely the one where I unpack what Empire Total War could have been like if the game had been allowed to develop for a while longer the sound reality is that Empire's campaign was supposed to be so much deeper than it became with tons more events disasters family trees and Intrigue a possible people and Holy Roman Empire system succession Wars and so much more the Empire of our dreams looks like it was in development then but was never made into reality and considering how the game now just feels a bit too empty and directionless it's a true shame Empire's campaign is a mix of fantastic ambition and wasted potential then but it's hard to deny that it at least tried to bring something new to the total war series and for that Empire's campaign still piques my interest to this day which is evident in my Empire challenge campaign but Empire innovated even more with battlefields I completely changed everything for better or worse instead of swords and sandals we now have thousands of infantry men carrying guns in the Golden Age of lining directly in front of each other and surviving just long enough for the other side to die faster than you it makes for a great spectacle though and even though they might not be as intense as the more traditional Total War battles there is something about the line Warfare that just somehow fits the whole thing better I don't know how to explain it but because units aren't drinking coffee in a massive melee Cafe Empire just feels like there's more calculated tactics involved time hydrating the use of cannons and artillery and you have the super weapons of the age which not only incites fear in your enemies but lands some amazing sounds inside to the battlefield Cavalry is also important and a well-placed charge will change the course of battle so at the end of the day muskets aren't everything we must of course remember the four battles though the bane of this game and happens to be that way because unit pathfinding in this game is at times completely atrocious and buggy and these are aspects which have yet to be fixed at all the AI isn't necessarily the best either so much of the praise I've given here for Empire's battles are predicated on the terms that you're fighting in the field and that the AI actually chooses to engage you properly no matter where you play though Empire Total Wars still offers some gorgeous visuals on the battle maps and even though it's true that Napoleon is even more mouth-wateringly beautiful Empire's visuals mostly hold up especially when factoring in the massive leap away from edible to use a bit more primitive old school graphics the final and largest edition of Empire Total War however is arguably the all-new Naval battles from being non-existent to a massive part of Empire creative assembly somehow managed to make it big on the first try with the naval battles arguably being the second best in the series after again the more polished Napoleon battles for the first time we can finally steer our own ships see the sails and the flags fly and hear the Cannons Roar the battles do seem a bit more RNG based because everything is now reliant on whether the Cannons hit the enemy ships or not though but sound maneuvering will often turn the tide either way these battles look and sound so cinematic and because a massive feature of the grand colonial empires of the times were these powerful navies having these battles be manually played really as that sense of Empire to Empire this is especially true as times goes on as a larger Empire and better technology will often mean bigger and better ships and there's something about the back and forth of cannon fire from these massive beasts that remind me of the space combat from Star Wars it's just awesome is what I'm really trying to say here if you want more out of Empire though you have several options and I'm going to list two of those right now the first is the all-time classic Empire mod Darth mod Darth mod has a ton of playable factions with the game and upgrades several aspects including more units a revamped economy system a new Ai and some awesome visual features that make the battlefields look much more like napoleons the second is Empire 2. and if you want to this is where you can really change things up from new units to a revamped UI visual effects and factions and part 2 even includes a host of new features like actual events and decisions this gives us a hint of what Empire could have been in the beginning and since Empire 2 is still in development all these years later I'm sure we can expect even more from this mod in the future Empire is arguably ca's most contested title alongside Rome 2. and it comes down to the change of engine unfinished features and lacking content but if you manage to tolerate some of the downsides and broken Siege battles Empire is a total war game on a whole nother scale than before and arguably in some ways compared to what came after as well if you want to really feel like you're ruling a global Empire while fighting those awesome trademark Total War battles this time on land and on the high seas the Empire might just be the game for you and because of how future-oriented the visuals and UI of this game was Empire still holds up today thank you [Music] my enemies are many my equals are none in the shade of olive trees they said Italy could never be conquered gosh I love that intro I think it just might be my favorite Total War intro of all time I loved it so much I used to doing a presentation in my high school French class and never looked back it really encapsulates exactly what this game is about a chance for Napoleon son of Carlo Bonaparte to show his quality I think the intro says something about the game as a whole as well it's to the point and concise showing us exactly where Napoleon's biggest battles took place Italy Egypt Russia these all symbolize iconic and history alternative periods of the Napoleonic Wars and we get to play them all in this game however there is a cavity and we'll go over each of the campaigns in turn in order right now Napoleon Total War offers three different campaigns four if you count the post-launch Peninsular campaign and they're all uniquely linear in that you're kind of meant to play them all in order the first is the Italian campaign during Napoleon's early days the Italian campaign takes place on a large map of Northern and Central Italy this is when Napoleon truly proved themselves as a masterful commander and you'll see why in this campaign remember this is a time when France waged war against almost the entirety of Europe and had just emerged from a massive Revolution our main enemy in Italy is actually Austria the Empire controlling much of Northern Italy during this time period but smaller States remain here as well like the Papal States Venice and Piedmont Sardinia I think the Italian campaign is a good starting point and it's indeed the campaign new players will encounter first it's not too difficult puts the player in a familiar setting and it feels really good to kick some Austrian ass but after completing it once I've never actually finished it again and why that is will be discussed later the second campaign and this is when things start to get really interesting is the Egyptian campaign but before we get into this I want to talk about the graphics of this game because the feel of the Egyptian campaign really hinges on this aspect a major thing with Napoleon is that it took almost everything it has from Empire it's Mommy so to speak I love Empire but there's no denying that the game was and continues to be unpolished the visual specifically felt somewhat raw in Empire even though they're pleasing and kind of Timeless moving back to Napoleon everything from anti-aliasing to Nature and unit models just look and feel so much more polished I especially love one thing about Napoleon's visuals and I'm talking about the Haze effects and the subtle depth of field effects coupled with the grass and other natural clutter that appears on screen even the smoke and gunfire effects are improved and combined Napoleon's subtle enhancements make such a massive difference that I'm still wowed by them to this day and in many ways Napoleon might actually be the most beautiful total war game out there when it comes to Clarity polish and timelessness returning to Egypt then these haste effects really show us what they're worth I absolutely love playing in Egypt because of the ancient Sands that feel so much more ancient because of the beautiful sun Haze and depth of field effects creative assembly managed to create an image that feels really unique depending on where in the world you're fighting and that is a wonderful achievement other than the visual side the Egyptian campaign pits France mostly against the Ottoman Empire even though you'll also find mamluks better ones and of course the British lurking around the map it's a slightly more difficult campaign than the Italian one but if you keep Vigilant use your armies to affect and don't act too carelessly your troops should fairly easily take down the ottoman troops by virtue of quality alone the Egyptian campaign is by and large special for its location nowhere else in this game will you find terrain or geography like the ones in the Egyptian campaign and that's a big shame because other than this Factor there really isn't all that much to differentiate between this and the Italian campaign just like in Italy Napoleon in Egypt will periodically get missions or special events will pop up that gives you various bonuses but there isn't much else in terms of immersive events or mechanics and this brings us finally to the main event of this game the European campaign this is likely where you'll spend the vast majority of your time especially due to the possibility of playing as the other major Powers here as well including Great Britain Prussia Austria and Russia but France is of course the star a Napoleon with it this is where we really get to prove our medal as France finds herself outnumbered and outgunned to the north the British flares its Navy off the coast of Normandy and pulls an everlasting threat of invasion in the East both Austria and Russia wait ready to March to the West Prussia is sure to join them soon enough and who knows who else might eye you as a Target this is the first and only campaign in the game where diplomacy is a viable option to move forward partially because this is the only campaign with more than a handful of factions what I love about the European campaign is how it really shows how creative assembly took a good hard look at Empire and thought you know what we can do better remember this was before the time of Total War offering massive Maps like in Rome 2 and Attila taking that into account Napoleon's Europe is as Grand as ever and we finally have a Europe filled with cities both large and small including the system of smaller towns serving their own unique purpose as Farms workshops or Merchant houses the city models no longer look like Legos and even the soundtrack has been updated now actually playing tracks I love listening to years later gameplay wise Napoleon has inherited virtually all of Empire systems and mechanics we have trade nodes visible on the map where you can send Merchant ships to get filthy rich we have a government window with ministers that will factor in on various parts of your state a similar technology system based on universities and gentlemen and we have the same two type City system of Economic and Military towns even though Napoleon has more Direction than Empire in terms of missions and events related to what Napoleon does it's nowhere near as encompassing as in later games it does feel nice to see them when they're there though and the art style and pain things in the event windows are fantastic so let's talk about what most people hate about Napoleon especially when compared to Empire if Empire had one thing going for it it was his Globe spanning scope you could play in Europe North America and even India and even though the landmass itself was small the sheer scope of it in some sense made up for the one Province France Napoleon is different focusing solely on Europe and I mean solely what I find this sound stress in Napoleon is the lack of a Middle East and especially the lack of Egypt and North Africa sure the main Napoleonic wars did not take place as much there as in Germany but I still want to play there and that's what Total War is about isn't it and having those areas would bring so much more to the Colonial game as well and make it so much more fun to play as the Ottomans and trying to do what they failed to do outside the walls of Vienna a few centuries prior imagine having a separate Atlantic or North American Theater even where Naval battles were important to their control of overseas trade routes and colonies Empire scope with Napoleon's detailed land mass would have been a perfect game but sadly we only ever had one or the other I personally don't think it's as much of a game breaker as some do but I will say that I probably would have played Napoleon 10 times as much if it was larger in scope I would even be fine with cutting the Italian and Egyptian campaign if it meant having a larger main campaign scope it's kind of like if the Attila campaign had large swaths of land missing because separate campaigns covered them and that would have seriously hampered the experience I think like we touched upon earlier Europe is where you actually get to play as members of the Coalition they all pose various challenges but I will say that my favorite non-france factions are probably either Great Britain or Russia and this is because they either play quite differently or are located in very different parts of the world Great Britain is obviously an island relying for the most part on their Navy to keep them safe from French invasion Russia on the other hand is so far away that it's crazy but the snowy environment and the possible challenge of a war with the Ottomans keeps the experience fresh and now let's move on to the final campaign the Peninsular campaign now this is a campaign I actually didn't really play until recently but my friend in the comments alas recommended I try it so I did and you know it's actually a top-notch Napoleon experience like the other side campaigns it's focused on a singular location with few factions this time we're in Iberia with a massive France fighting against a Spanish Uprising and the British and Portuguese allies what's fun with this campaign is that it really changes up the formula instead of starting small France is now the dominant power and the Coalition only controls a few provinces in the southwest the catch though is that France is dealing with massive unrest while the Coalition can mostly move about as they wish this creates a scenario not unlike a certain Western Roman Empire experience although I will say the Peninsular campaign could have been harder on the highest difficulty you'll face a challenge for sure but I think it could have offered more unique events and ways for the Spanish Uprising to make life a lot more difficult that being said I love how it forces you to focus and develop certain provinces in order to create a foundation for future expansion as friends especially if you lose portions of Spain to unrest or invasion and those were all of Napoleon's campaigns and let me put it like this I think they're all good in their own way with some much better than others of course however my biggest wish is that we've ever gotten a European campaign with regions being the size they are in each of the individual size campaigns including overseas territories that would have been awesome and maybe we'll get to see something like it in the future I would have also loved more ways to interact with our government economy and Society but for now let's turn to the battles and see what's really taking underneath the campaign as is the case with the rest of the game Napoleon's battles are almost identical to the once in Empire again though we have infinitely more polish the battles look and feel amazing and the sounds of the battlefield especially turn the immersion up to 11. [Music] the rank and file Warfare is excellently portrayed and it will never get sick of seeing my nation's flag being carried into battle the animations as well are mostly fantastic and virtually every bug from Empire is gone with units moving and behaving a lot more natural even though some Daredevils will scale their defensive arcades for some god-awful reason the combination of rifles and cannons is powerful but even though bullets dominate you do well to never underestimate the power of flanking shot Cavalry as they can easily turn the tides of battle by forcing enemy units to Route both are short and long range fighting creates a highly Dynamic field and makes it possible to outsmart a larger enemy Force by using the right tactics the AI could have been better though and that is probably the one thing from Empire that although better has remained let's just say a work in progress that never got finished lastly I think the city battles are so uninspired and copy pasted from Empire that it's honestly really bad and even fighting in the game's largest cities will only make you feel like you're fighting in some random Village we of course also have Naval battles arguably the best in this series titled fall of the Samurai the ships look and feel better this time and again the battles have been polished and given that extra oomph since Empire I love seeing a ship open a delicious volley and long-range ship Warfare is definitely the best type of Naval Warfare you'll find in Total War sadly because of the campaign scope there's never a lot of water around this is perhaps one of the biggest downsides of having known North Africa and Middle Eastern landmass because the vital Mediterranean is made almost completely irrelevant that's not even mentioning the Atlantic and overseas territories in this sense Naval Warfare is much less important and almost completely absent unless you're playing as France or Britain Napoleon Total War is one of the most polished Total War Games ever it looks runs and feels so much better than Empire and is a much more focused experience its maps are larger but every campaign feels like part of something bigger except for the Europe Campaign which is as close to a grand campaign as we get in this game what it lacks though is a campaign map that really includes everything this time period offers even the parts that weren't necessarily in the center of the conflict I would have loved more map more regions and a bigger scope in an expanding Napoleonic Grand campaign preferably with even deeper mechanics that went beyond those of Empire I will say I love that we still have a population mechanic and a government system though and seeing how Napoleon came out before ca's big turn towards more unique and deep mechanics with Attila and Beyond Napoleon's mechanics were quite all right for its time I also miss a hot seat function but Napoleon tried to make up for that with the very first full implementation of a two-player online Campaign which remains fun to this day Napoleon is one of the total Wars I love the most because of everything it did right and improved but ironically one of the historical Total Wars I've played the least because of a lack in scope and new mechanics from a previous title in many ways it's empire plus but also Empire minus at the same time I would highly recommend Napoleon Total War all these years later especially now that most Hardware can play it with high frame rates on max.graphic settings [Music] now they say nothing they fear me like a force of nature a dealer in Thunder and death I say I am Napoleon I am emperor [Music] there was never a time in history when the total war series had remained solely in Europe and West Asia after all the very first old war game was indeed strong in Total War a game taking place during the sungoku period in the 15th century before the 11 years between 2000 and 2011 Total War took a long break from the Japanese theater before finally making his return but when he did Shogun 2 became one of the most universally loved Total War games of all time currently somehow tied with Empire Total War for the second highest Raider total war after the original Rome in this video you and I will be taking a long overdue trip down memory lane and take a look at what made Shogun 2 so awesome and answer the question of whether Shogun 2 is worth playing in 2022 it signaled a return to a more futile type of warfare and way of life after the more Modern Age of gunpowder seen in both Empire and Napoleon when I think about it it's actually really strange to think about that the total war Series in 2011 hadn't even seen a second Rome it feels so long ago yet not so far away at the same time and I keep saying this but I really don't think time is real anyway Shogun 2 works like any other total war game in that it offers both a campaign and the Signature Total War battles and for the sake of ease and introduction let's take a look at the campaign first and see which Innovations Shogun 2 offered as players Shogun 2 puts us back into the Japanese and Goku era a time of the warring clans of Japan a time of Samurai Warriors and even the famed the only yariyashigaru provide excellent defense against enemy Cavalry Charges we're given several factions to play here and I think what most people would say right about now is that the faction diversity is not the best here well to that I would say fair enough I suppose just like with the wrath of Sparta DLC for Rome 2 that kind of is what happens when you focus on one particular region at a time but contrary to the Greek factions in Raza Sparta there's a whole lot more going on here for one the starting positions of the various factions have a lot to say when it comes to early game difficulty my favorite two factions happen to be in very different positions and I guess we can call them the red and blue samurai the Red Samurai namely Takeda is a faction with some seriously powerful Cavalry but they begin in a very tough position surrounded by potential enemies especially on the hardest difficulty is this a very tough beginning but if you can survive the first dozen turns you have a great chance of making it even further the blue samurai represented by the darte have a very different role they offer powerful infantry units and are located far away from most other factions meaning they have a relatively easy starting position this is the faction I like to suggest for beginners then as you can really take your time as a dates no matter which faction you play as though discovering Japan in all his glory is a treat the campaign map is not only larger than ever but the highly stylistic choice of the map visuals helps you differentiate it from the Empire and Napoleon Maps I love seeing the trade represented by traveling merchants and the Sea and coastlines have a very unique and almost mesmerizing look to them what I'm not as in love with are the city models which I find to be the least impressive of the game's Graphics they're just kind of there all looking more or less the same they're much more complicated and fun looking info of the Samurai where it looks like we have some actual City sprawl what is interesting about this map however is that Shogun 2 has three different styles depending on the campaign you played we of course have the vanilla Grand campaign but the game received two large campaign DLCs which altered the very aesthetic of the map the first of these were the rise of the Samurai campaign where the map has a distinctly brighter look the second is the fall of the Samurai map which looks a lot more realistic and dark I think each of these fit the time period really well and I love the experimentation done by the team here if you want to see more on the fall of the Samurai by the way then make sure to check out my review of the game after this video I would say that the topographical diversity for the vanilla campaign could have been increased somewhat though as you're basically either seeing really flat terrain or extremely tall mountains either way though this map is as beautiful as it is massive and this rang all the more true when it came out over a decade ago on the soundtrack while a tattoo timid and in the background for my taste is distinctly Japanese and offers some truly gorgeous Tunes especially on the battlefields the best things about the Shogun campaign however are all the campaign mechanics that together make a really big difference take for example the all-new General system which made our commanders so much more customizable and personal than they ever were before whereas generals could achieve ranks and trades in the earlier games Shogun 2 introduced the very first system of an actual skill tree generals level up as you play and win battles which award your ability points and in this way each General can be specialized into leading various troops depending on your playstyle I think this system sets the standard for Total War General's mechanics to come and even though it's a simple one it's easy enough to understand yet complex enough to have meaning in many ways I prefer to roam twos and Beyond due to this fact we also have the return of the technology tree which now looks a lot more refined and intentional than the one in Empire for example even the family tree is back and is better than ever and Shogun 2 becomes the first Total War Game to offer a food mechanic in terms of cities and settlements Shogun to follow the example Empire and Napoleon set before it we have the return of that system by way of having larger cities with the main settlements in the region while the landscape is dotted by smaller towns and resource outposts even though I think the UI could have done away with the little markers that tell us what they do at a glance I love the use of these smaller towns they're not perfect partly because I wish they were more dynamic or interesting somehow but the concept is what I really love here it makes it that much more important to own a blacksmith town and other resources because they actually impact the armor and weapons grid of your units it allows for diversity in City management several points of interest around the map that are not potential castle sieges and I absolutely love the concept of having things like ports divided from the city this was a feature in both Empire Napoleon and Shogun 2 and I'm actually really annoyed that they removed it for Rome too with the best example of this removal being a horrible decision becoming evident when as we see the most important city in the game Rome does not have a poor word if rom 2 system had been like Shoguns Austria could have existed as a port city and absolutely everybody would have lived happily ever after but no once again woe is me I think this is a good time to talk about the UI because to me Shogun 2's UI is near Perfection look at this screen right here for example now tell me what do you see exactly you see Perfection my friend you see the small rounded system of menus down in the right corner and the optional map in the top right with conveniently hit many years that quickly shows you event messages diplomatic relations and your armies in a fast and easy way as you want them to appear if you click on a settlement or an army they elegantly pop up down in left corner and further if you examine a general a page pops up on the left things like engaging in diplomacy or researching technology will open a larger window in the middle of the screen but because we're not taking away from the map itself everything appears extremely fluid and smooth and I think Shogun 2's UI design is so slick and modern looking for these reasons it is perhaps my favorite Total War UI tied with a TLS and Troy's and it's just so much more forward-looking than the likes of warhammer's more chunky one for example we even have Asians and event cinematics here many of which take direct inspiration from the likes of medieval too and yet again symbolizes the dedication of the whole vibe hair wow oh my God in terms of the overall campaign experience when it comes to the AI Shogun 2 might just be one of the hardest Total War games of all time I say this because the AI is generally extremely aggressive which makes it important to build your armies and meet the enemy especially during the early parts of your campaign alliances don't necessarily last too long either and it can be hard to achieve trade agreements even with certain friendly factions take too long to do anything as talkative for example and you'll be eaten alive from the North and the South factions like either date or shimatsu which are both situated at the edges of the map fare much better in this respect but again way too long to expand and you'll regret it soon enough if you make it to the mid to late game though Shogun 2 offers a mechanic we've seen other takes on in many other Total War games but which hair is known as realm divide and it's arguably one of the more extreme ones realm divide is a mechanic so hated by sections of the community partially because they can completely throw you off your game in a rather unbalanced way and I'll tell you why realm device is triggered when you can't get enough settlements and are powerful enough to effectively challenge the Shogun in Kyoto at which point he declares you an enemy of Japan it makes it so that every single fashion in the game becomes your enemy effectively ending diplomacy and peace as we know it oh man oh god oh man oh god oh man oh god oh man oh god oh man oh God as once the amusers are hilariously commented realm divide is the point where the AI stops pretending not to hate you others would perhaps say nothing and choose to let Shogun to say it for them full display now I've kind of always liked this sort of thing as it poses a really big late game challenge in games where these are solely needed room one had that feature where you order 66 the Senate and Medieval 2 had a threesome of a Mongol invasion a team root Invasion and a black death and yet Shogun 2 seems the most brutal as is so immediate and there's not a lot of places to hide on this island I do think it poses a massive challenge if you're prepared for this massive war though but for unsuspecting players who perhaps rely on trade with friendly neighbors realm Devine poses a rather rude awakening all in all though the campaign experience in Shogun 2 holds up really well and I think we in part can thank the excellent UI experience for that but the other side of the total war coin Remains the battles of course and Shogun 2 offers some of the absolute best in the series Shogun 2 marked the return of close combat medieval style Warfare and even though it uses the same engine as the oso buggy Empire Shogun 2 somehow managed to offer a so much more polished and immersive battle experience not only are the units gorgeous and the battle maps nicely stylized but the floor battle inherits from Napoleon and sense of realism and intuitiveness soldiers face up nicely somehow making Mass combat look extremely cool offering one of the most cinematic total war combat experiences ever I adore the way archers are rightfully powerful and the flight of every arrow is just really satisfying to watch what is important to know about the combat in Shogun 2 is that it's based on a rock paper scissor Foundation perhaps more so than any other Total War here sword counting Samurai have an advantage against Spearman spearmen easily take down calorie while cavalry in turn run down archers as if they're nothing archers will pick up swordsman from afar and so it goes around and around it's very important to be aware of these snacks and turn them to your advantage coupled with the fact that the field battles of Shogun 2 features several terrain variations including Open Fields and large Hills makes position and tag takes a while to achieve Victory I think this diversity is why I prefer the field battles Over The Siege battles Now The Siege battles in Shogun are beasts of their own the castles here are largely just that glorified force with walls that need defending and or attacking the larger the castles the more there is to attack and with the largest of them all I personally think less is more in shokun 2. I have so much more fun playing as the defenders in Siege battles because attacking seems like a chore on the higher levels and I love picking off the enemy with the castle filled with defending archers the focus on walls and relatively easy defense of these gives the defender a big Advantage which I think is appropriate but like I suggested because every city is virtually identical being the attacker can sour rather quickly in my opinion overall though the uniqueness of Shogun 2's unions compared to other Total Wars namely on the use of heavy Samurai Warriors powerful archers and fast moving Cavalry makes these battles both intense and tactical and while it is true that you'll see the same units over and over again I actually never feel like it ever turns boring it's not like an ancient Greece where you have a phalang's army stab each other for a thousand hours because here every battle is more Dynamic than the lands due to this rock paper scissor mentality it's almost weird that they even included naval combat in this one and even though I'm happy with the inclusion Naval Combat prior to the real island of gunpowder has never really been my thing others might love them for very good reasons but like in Rome 2 I think they're mostly a chore to play luckily then since navies are mostly used to transport and blockade ports you can probably manage to avoid most Naval Combat if you really want to and for everything else there's always Auto resolve Shogun 2 is a fan favorite for a reason this campaign is beautiful and modern even a decade later the only need for a remaster this game has would be to fix up on an overly aggressive campaignia eye a few visual enhancement and fixing the campaign multiplayer which is doomed decent at some point and yes sure the campaign lacks a certain depth that I would want to see in every Total War like more population mechanics and deeper State Management but other than that Shogun 2 is near perfection in terms of Total War especially considering the mess that was Empire that came out a few years earlier the UI is fancy it's fun to upgrade and Taylor General's abilities and I love the dynamism between largest settlements and smaller towns on the battlefield Shogun 2 elevates the more static Warfare of Empire and Napoleon to one of the series most dynamic battlefields ever it's just a beautiful sight to see Samurai Armor's Clash followed by Archer volleys and cowboy charges and even though I wish General survived a tad longer the overall experience is absolutely superb Shogun 2 was a fantastic game in 2011 and due to his modern systems and solid campaign and bio foundations it remains a gem in 2022 I highly recommend playing Shogun 2 if you miss all Japan or have yet to visit and playing this game really makes me wish for an even more detailed Shogun 3 at some point it's becoming something of a staple for historical Total War Games to receive massive Standalone expansion packs or at the very least a follow-up game which is connected to its proverbial mother Medieval 2 had kingdoms Empire had Napoleon and Rome 2 had Attila all games which built or continuous the eras in some way or another are the ones preceding them all of these were in my opinion excellent follow-ups and especially Attila is perhaps my favorite Total War of all time but there is one Standalone expansion which is so legendary so universally acclaimed that I'm almost afraid we won't be seeing another like it for some time and that game is the fall of the Samurai expansion for Total War Shogun 2. and in this video we'll take a look at exactly why full of the Samurai is so amazing as always if you enjoyed the video I hope you leave a like a comment and subscribe to the channel and now on to a rapidly modernized in Japan where Shogun 2 takes place during feudal Japan in the Golden Age of the Samurai swordsman Bowman and of course the yaru yashigaru fall of the Samurai skips ahead a few hundred years to the age of new imperialism in the latter half of the 19th century not only has the landscape been changed from the fairy tale-like environments to something much more realistic the political landscape has changed as well gone are the clans of old now replaced by larger and more powerful Clans and factions perhaps most importantly Western influence is now a big part of the game where you can interact with the United States Britain or France through trade and Military Ventures it's an age where the skills and cultures of old are being pushed aside in favor of Steel and gunpowder and massive professional armies in more and more centralized States it is an age overseeing the fall of the Samurai and the rise of the lion infantry and will return to this battlefield later on Japan is a fragmented land in 1864. the Japanese Clans are divided into two factions each vying for Supremacy one Alliance supports the continued domination of the Shogun and the old ways while the other fights for the supremacy of the emperor no faction starts as hegemon here instead most are made up of around two or three provinces and might include some alliances which may further your quest for Domination in this tumultuous era my favorite faction is sumatsu because they start at a very western edge of the map on its own relatively small island no less I also just love their dark blue color it's also fashion focusing online infantry and modernized armies and while it kinda looks like the one from The Last Samurai follow the samurai borrows most of his gameplay aspects from Shogun 2 and it's all the better for it the user interface is beautiful and minimalistic focused only on the right side of the screen green rather than all over it makes for a better picture overall as you have so much space for the rest of the world as the seasons change so do their effects and you'll have to take you into account things like attrition and food production for when you want to make military moves this philosophy is extended to the city buildings as well cities look realistic not too massive like in Rome 2 but not as small and cartoonish as an Empire you have all the information you need at a glance as well you can see how much money you make whether your city's wealth is growing or declining and you see this happiness level going deeper everything from unit cars to City images are so time appropriate and well drawn that it puts the later games abstract UI designs to shame and I firmly remain a supporter of having building cards actually look like the building they're portraying and not some abstract concept like a cow or a gun or an anchor or something all the financial info you'll more or less ever need is easily found in the city's menus and I love that you can see the expected growth or decline of each individual City and that you can change the tax level on a per City basis which you know makes sense we of course have a diplomacy menu where you see who you're trading with and who's at war and whatnot and as a series first in Shogun 2 which followed into this expansion we got an in-depth action panel where you get an overview of your family and your important generals here you can give your commanders important offices which unlock the third you get in the game think of it as an early version of the Attila offices or the office system in Three Kingdoms as stated each faction is aligned either with the Emperor or the Shogun and this Alliance impacts your relations with other factions Ergo you'll be diplomatically closer to factions with the same goal and vice versa you are in essence conquering your enemies for your Emperor here and the more you manage to conquer the more the emperor will recognize you you can in the end become the leader of your alliance and if you are with the emperor you eventually get a choice to continue fighting for a said Emperor or take up the mantle of your own faction and decide to sail your own Japanese season week destroying a relationship with every other faction in the game it's a sort of different take on the realm divide mechanic from Shogun 2 although rather similar it is awesome that if you decide to continue to fight and become the emperor's Champion though your faction Banner changes to that of the emperor this is a wonderful immersive move and I highly appreciate that what's really awesome and unique to follow the samurai is the fact that your ships are actually useful on the campaign map by placing them close to Ports or cities or armies you can Reign fire down upon them hopefully taking some cannons or infantry out in the process and I suppose this brings us to the battlefield as most actions will in this game I'll say it right now the battlefields in Fall of the Samurai are gorgeous the fields are massive filled with open areas and defensible positions but what really makes the battles in full of the Samurai is this Fusion between all the new between the traditional and modern because not only do we get the Epic lion infantry era Warfare with powerful cannons massive volley exchangers which light up the field and even a Canon type which no other historical total war game has the Gatling gun which just decimates anyone who dares approach it but we also get a taste of the old of The Way of the Samurai through Katana wearing Warriors who will shred through gun carrying noobs or highly skilled Samurai bow men with high damage arrows shot over a surprisingly long range and who can shoot over Hills so as to not require a straight line of sight like the Infantry does or what about the samurai Cavalry the options are many and by combining fire and smoke with sword and arrows the battlefields will fault of the Samurai are absolutely stunning for a historical Total War title we are given a diversity of troops and fighting styles rarely seen up until the Warhammer games only here we get the added sense of realism every Cannonball and every shot matters and if you use your calorie effectively it's quite possible to turn the tide of battle and roll up a carpet of would-be killers turning them into a routing mass for you to cut down remember those fleets of yours on the battle map I can shoot a thousand cities well if they're in Precision they can also be utilized in the battles for some truly epic scenes allowing you to bombard the enemy with a massive Firepower no lone Cannon can muster you'll have to plan your shots in advance and wait a handful of seconds before you actually see their effect on the battlefield though so remember to plan your barrages accordingly and speaking of things that transfers from the campaign map the units belonging to Western Nations will also be possible to recruit as soldiers so either an elite unit of French English or American unit of line infantry will be recruitable we also have the siege battles of course and just like in Shogun 2 The Siege battles will feature smaller or larger castles you'll have to scale and almost never actual cities the castles are zoomed into different sections but there are no Siege Towers or ladders so every unit except for calorie can scale walls just by climbing them what makes sieges difficult though is that they're perfectly made for Defending Your Watchers and gunmen have excellent firing positions and your towers are also ready getting arrows down on the enemy if you're prepared and perhaps also wealthy you can hire a ton of cannons to do most of the heavy lifting for you shooting from a distance feels amazing and a hard-hitting volley just looks so sick and when it's time to March your army forward you can really feel proud and confident that the enemy's defenses are severely diminished even before the fighting starts this is all to say that Defenders don't have cannons too of course and if they do well tough while the castles attempt to do here is basically make you fight your way from the bottom to the top and especially is this the case in the larger cities where you have several gays and walls to scale this can make for some epic battles but I much prefer the castles and cities of other games like Rover medieval because in Shogun 2 and follow the samurai I just think these Maps look and play very much like each other and frankly they're not as much fun to play as the open field battles they're perhaps more fun to defend than attack but it all kind of depends on your army and what you're prepared for we of course will have Naval battles which in full of the Samurai are so freaking cool it is the current year of like 1865 so we are in the process of moving away from the sailboats of the Napoleonic era and instead deal in large part with steam engines now this might make your ship run faster but it also makes them especially prone to Absolute destruction if a fire starts or a particularly mean Cannonball hits it makes for a great sight though so there's that like in Empire or Napoleon the naval battles work really well you have two sides to shoot from and you maneuver your ships to as the best hunt down and bombard the enemy ships just like with the battlefield your chosen Western Nation will net you a cool ship as well like the iron Clan which has an immense amount of armor and Firepower compared to its more traditional counterparts both the sounds and the size are impressive and Naval battles in Fall of the Samurai really do make the case for the return of a grand Seaborn Warfare in Total War so should you play or even perhaps buy full of the Samurai especially this long after release well yes absolutely you should follow the samurai still offers a deep and intense Campaign which really demands everything of you from the beginning and you'll have to manage your thirst for Conquest with the capabilities of other factions to send armies and navies your way on the battlefield few historical Total War games are as dynamic as this one where we get an awesome mix of Firepower and Samurai power making for some truly Grand and intense stuff follow the samurai became one of the better Total War titles when it launched as a standalone expansion back in 2012 and remains one of total War's finest experiences to date if if you've been looking for a total war which marries guns and swords but one which remains a historical title then I think you just found it [Music] why do you think she's a favor too so I was loyal no Octavian he saw in you the potential to continue his legacy follow him but to exceed him if you could think of one piece of Total War media you thought was perhaps just a little bit overhyped at launch there really is one possible option isn't there and I think the answer would have to be none other than Total War Rome too the long-awaited sequel to Rome now if you don't know the original Rome is perhaps the most beloved Total War of all time alongside Medieval 2 which made Rome 2 even more of a big deal it not only stood on the shoulders of a massive Nostalgia but it also had perhaps the most high marketing campaign ever we were shown some absolutely mental trailers and showcases and the promise of a massive new campaign map and mechanics were to provide the deepest and largest Total War experience ever so what became of Rome 2 and how is the game now after all this time is worth playing or maybe pick back up if you've been away for a while well that's what we'll find out together and if that sounds interesting I hope you leave a like and consider subscribing to the channel [Music] Rome 2 launched back in September 2013. that is over eight years ago my friends and feels like a whole nother Lifetime and I did not need that reminder right now anyway Rome 2 was an incredible letdown on launch and I mean incredible the game ran like absolute dog doo-doo was bugged to heaven and back and either featured a family tree nor a useful political system back then I watched angry Joe's roam 2 review in both Despair and the amusement and I could not believe all the horrible horrible all the humanity levels of Unfinished game I was witnessing but that was 2013 of course and in 2021 things are a lot better thank God you might not have believed it in 2013 but Rome 2 is actually the most popular historical Total War Title by far with an average daily player base of around 5 000 people and with an all-time current player peak of 118 240 players that's not counting 3K speak of 191 816 player Peak by the way that is impressive and I think it shows two things the first is that the Roman period is extremely popular especially among historically minded people it's a diverse time period with many different cultures and Empires and it's appeared favored by strategy game developers and their players second I think Rome 2 has remained popular because creative assembly managed to turn the game around they fixed the worst flaws patched up most of the bugs and even added new features campaigns and updates years after release even now it remains a gorgeous game with the grand can pay a map and possibilities of truly epic battles and you can make it all look even better with using some mods and if that interests you then I'd advise you to check out my video on how to make room 2 look next gen I'll leave the link in the description but what is Rome 2 and how does it differ from other Total War games let's begin with the campaign where you'll do all your actual conquering and Empire managing first glance rom 2 shows us a campaign map that has been completely altered since the games prior instead of having single cities or resource towns scattered about Rome 2 was the first game that launched the idea of a province system if you look closely well not that closely perhaps you'll see that Rome 2 cities are linked together in provinces each province is generally made up of at least two cities and there's always one city bigger than the rest this is known as a province capital and is essentially the most important city in a region this is your center of politics trade and commerce and perhaps even War the other cities tend to be once best suited for farming mining or other resources and depending on their value you'll have to decide which to defend or leave open to attack now I think the system is decent it ensures that the map is populated with towns and cities and even forces the player to prioritize what they build where what I think is less nice is that we're not allowed to race walls anywhere we want only Providence Capitals have walls and for the devs to hard code this is a mistake in my opinion it makes it so that town battles always feel more or less the same and leads to unfortunate circumstances like some major historical cities like Syracuse or Jerusalem remaining Without Walls something they definitely had I also regret the fact that we cannot build our own roads which was such a staple of the Roman Empire that is frankly a shame I really hate that C8 decided to move away from Road building with Rome 2 a feature I desperately hope will return looking at the game's buildings I think it's fair to talk about the UI as well the building icons for rom 2 were never my favorite I understand what they wanted to do with it though which was to create icons reminiscent of old Roman art and symbols or at least icons that give off that Vibe but in my opinion icons like these are too abstract to create a sense of immersion in this sense I much prefer what CA did with Rome 1 and medieval or even Attila where the buildings all look like what they are actually representing this is a complaint I have with the Warhammer games or even The Saga titles and it's an aspect CA seems to really want to continue with to my personal terrible dismay luckily there's more to Rome to than just building stuff though underneath the hood lies an entire Empire manager with a political system and a family tree here you'll be able to see how your family has changed with the times and each of your characters be they male or female have abilities they can use to further your goals you can for example adopt other politicians into your family tree have others assassinated or go on diplomatic missions to foreign states to carry favor this last point was added long after release actually and even though it's not as reliable as I would have wished it's really interesting and fun feature it really makes characters so much more important and I wish CA would focus more on diplomatic micromanaging features like this and all of this ties into Rome to his political system there are several political factions present in every nation and your family is always a part of one of them the other factions will have inherent and alterable modifiers based on certain features tied to their political party and people in them and they all work towards either getting you out of office or keeping you in it factors vary from liking you because you align with the trade policies or because you both hate and or dislike barbarians or Greeks for example and even though it's a cool system I think it could have been made even deeper and more interesting with a few more touch-ups and features here and there this political system is ultimately here to give the player another challenge to be mindful of other than enemy Empires you see if certain parties don't like you if family members aligned with these parties might decide to declare open civil war against you the severity of such a war varies depending on how much you use and prop up generals belonging to these families however but can be a real ball buster later in the game remember Total War is not a series where a taking Wars score will give you all your cities back once you've won enough battles so if a civil war breaks out and you lose a third or half of your Empire yeah you better be ready to wage a long War of Attrition to get it back again I love the concept of the Civil War and the political system and I'm happy that it's there I do wish there was more here though more to do more interesting events more awesome decisions to make with bigger rewards and penalties if you want to know more about how the political system works then make sure to check out happy compy total War's recent video on the subject I guarantee you learn something valuable we've already touched upon a little bit but let's return to the campaign map Rome 2's campaign map has always stunned me with this beauty in terms of visual Fidelity and size the map is something of a revolution in Total War terms it's colorful diverse and feels equally vast whether you're finding yourself in the force of Gaul or the deserts of Egypt if I had to make one complaint it would be that I wish the series worked better with the terrain what I mean by this is that the city models in Rome are so enormous that it feels like they're taking up way too much space space which could have allowed for even more cities or smaller towns that could clutter the map or something I would have really love the more granular approach to the game which I believe would have added a lot more depth and strategy because what stops me from enjoying a campaign is the fact that after I've conquered a major city like Carthage for example it really feels like I've already done most of what I set out to do Carthage is so vast and mysterious when you're a tiny Roman Republic in Italy but once Carthage is occupied there's not much to do there okay awesome Carthage is conquered but there are no unique events popping up no small towns to secure or resource locations to capture I wish that Rome 2 had made better use of City sprawl and by that I kind of wish that the game had combined the current Province system with the old system from Empire and Napoleon where smaller townships clutter the map it made the world feel a lot more alive with important interest points being found everywhere and I think you could have done a lot to make the map feel more alive and vibrant it is also kind of lame that we can't change our Capital manually anymore then there's diplomacy and I think I speak for most people when I say it's bottom tier as in maybe the worst diplomacy in any Total War game tongue that speaks without wisdom is not welcome be like a spear and have a point and I say this because well the AI is really weird sometimes especially in the beginning of the game trade riots are extremely hard to come by often factions you're decimating in Wars will not submit to vassalization or other peace treaties but perhaps what's worse is the fact that diplomacy as a concept only goes shallow deep but I strongly dislike is that it feels like alliances or client relationships are so much weaker and unreliable than they should be even when you vassalize the nation they can still just declare themselves independent if they refuse to join a war with another faction instead the system should be that the faction can only decide to go to war with their Overlord but only after a certain number of turns after P Street expires or something the diplomacy system and interfactional relationships are all too volatile and unpredictable for them to ever be worth all that much and in the end it's a shame that the only true reliable choice is to conquer everything yourself rather than create a true Roman system of clients and alliances that they began with in real life once should be able to integrate these clients into the wider Empire too if one so wishes but sadly this is not possible in Rome 2. certain factions are able to merge into confederations however but that's not really the same thing and this brings us to the factions Rome 2 offers a whole load of factions many from various cultures and locations in the world Rome is an obvious choice but you can also play as the Greek successor States European Barbarians in Gaul Germania or Britannia factions in Spain or nations far to the east in Persia the faction diversity is astounding and even though we don't really have many unique faction mechanics like we do in Troy for example the faction design geographical locations and most importantly the units really makes them feel distinctive and fun to alternate between I would have wanted more distinguishable music though as well as again more unique events mechanics and things of that nature that was a wrong two campaign experience but what about the battles that's kind of why you're here after all isn't it well contrary to the campaign Total War battles have largely stayed the same throughout the series history at launch though Rome 2 set out to change that not only did the game add amphibious Landings meaning that you could send your troops and ships and invade cities from the sea which was and remains awesome but and this here's a big one Rome 2 actually introduced capture points even for field battles which was perhaps the single biggest mess up of the entire game and or franchise the AI could not handle at one bit it meant for a very arcadey game mechanic and they turned regular field battles into broken fights the feature was luckily removed after some time though but boy that was a nightmare we've all kind of forgotten about huh the game didn't even have a guard mode button before like years after anyway skip forward to 2021 and Rome 2 battles are honestly really good your mileage will vary the depending on the play style of course but even then there's a lot in room 2 that will probably tickle your fancy here you'll find Slingers and Javelin throwers aplenty your typical Roman hastathi and triari and of course the legendary armies later on in the game the Greeks offered their hoplites and cataracts and some even roll with chariots a ton of other factions have their own units to send out all with their own strengths and weaknesses whether you're in northern Europe or North Africa what I love about Rome 2 and what I wish I did more of is that sense of early Discovery and mystery it's the ancient there after all and it will likely take you a while before you meet these Empires far away but once you do you'll encounter vastly different Army compositions and you'll have to learn how to tackle them as you go Carthage might be fairly ordinary but all of a sudden come the elephants the Greeks will show you their point despairs the likes of which you've never seen and further north and east highly mobile Cavalry and Archer armies await you the unit diversity is perhaps Rome 2's greatest accomplishment and after all these years I think the battles work really well too they don't really last too short or too long either and I don't feel like they'll bog down unless you're playing on higher difficulties if there's one thing I feel is lacking in Rome 2 battles it's a soundtrack that really elevates the experience Rome one had some of the most memorable music in the series while I can barely remember one track from Rome 2. that's a big shame especially when the campaign music is so much better than the battle soundtrack further I wish more emphasis was put into sieges making it more difficult to Siege wall cities is always a plus in my book and I wish the game would just do away with tortures altogether perhaps adding events to seizures could be a cool thing to add as well adding Palisades for smaller cities and features that would make the mechanic more fun to engage in and that was a Rome 2 main game honestly right now Rome 2 is a really good game it's improved and fixed most of the bad stuff over the years and added features the community was howling out for like the family tree system but the game has also received a massive amount of DLC and several expansion packs some of which are really good the season goal expansion lets you play a Caesar as he walks around and goal not knowing where he is until he stumbles upon a sign that says Gall the Hannibal at the gate expansion which is perhaps my favorite expands the southern European map to a massive small-scale version of the grand campaign map and pins Roman its allies against Carthage and its allies we have the agostix expansion the wrath of Sparta DLC the rise of the Republic Campaign which lets us lead Rome in its infancy and my second favorite expansion campaign Empire divided which moves us all the way to the crisis of the 3rd century and forces us to lead Rome as aurelian I guess a pretender Empires there's also a whole bunch of mods out there ranging from complete overhauls to unit mods many many more that I can mention here in other words if you're willing to pay for it especially on sale for cheap there is a ton of content here likely making room to the biggest historical Total War experience out there it definitely lacks depth in certain areas depth its successor Attila did a lot better but despite its faults Rome 2 is leagues better than it was at launch and has honestly become a really strong total war game in its very own right [Music] foreign once brought light to the world driving the Shadows away but it could not last forever [Music] that the end of days is upon us after close to 500 years as master of Europe the mighty Roman Empire is forced to tend to the barricades in the north from the dense force of Germania the German and Gothic tribes are driven South flooding the tall Roman walls grinding them into weak sandcastles in the East the Persian Empire and its vassals hope to reconquer Syria Palestine and Egypt while from the steps in the Northeast a new and terrible figure reveals himself for the first time Attila has arrived the year is 395 A.D and the Roman Empire is already split in two East and West the total war series lets you take control of selected historical Realms that existed during the selected time period from the Romans to the Persians Germans Saxons vandals Goths and yes the Hunts what's more is that the differences between them is not simply cosmetic this time like in the spiritual predecessor Barbarian Invasion from 2005 you can attempt to restore the Roman Empire as the western or the Eastern Roman Empire but their challenges and opportunities differing vastly playing as the emperor of the East demands that you manage to keep the purchase at Bay while keeping trade with the West alive while at the same time quickly getting ready to wage war and defend against incoming barbarians from the Northwest public order will also be an issue forcing you to prioritize your armies your building happiness producing buildings in your cities sounds hard then get a lot of this controlling the Western Roman Empire will demand everything of you sure the first term might seem like a fairly decent time for the westerners your Empire is massive and for the time being your income is sufficient but underneath this beautifully crafted World lies a spiral of death and despair for your armies are spread thin your Empire torn apart by the struggle between Western Christianity and Roman paganism and while the same time the peoples of Liberia are preparing to revolt against you and African tribes are moving north towards your cities Frankish and German armies will a Siege to your northern border and lay them bare Britannia is soon lost when a disloyal General takes long denim with him and it is not long until ostrogoth's flooded lyria and make it impossible to defend the Western Roman experience might seem like a trash can fire that it offers perhaps the most engaging campaign ever forcing you to always be on your toes and be painfully aware of which provinces you can afford to lose and which you have to maintain and defend although challenging the Roman and Persian experience both offer a relatively traditional Total War experience I.E building your cities armies defending and attacking Attila offers another a new experience as well letting you play as so-called horde Nations small factions which are not tied to permanent settlements in the same way as the hunt through other tribal Nations you don't really start with a given territory but are instead given relatively strong armies these hordes are just that as a horde Nation you can move fast across vast distances while being able to temporarily settle in a mobile Camp here you're able to establish your own miniature towns that can be packed up settling for a few turns May provide you with sorely needed resources like food and gold this means that you never really have to conquer established cities to survive making for a vastly different type of campaign a new mechanic allows you to race cities to the ground striking the traditional Empires rehearsed the most think of it as new king before it was cool but you have to be careful Attila as a genius fertility mechanic to the game where every Province Harbors a unique level of fertility which provides you with more or less food depending on this level for example Egypt is abundant with food just like it was historically while the Sands of Sahara are less so when racing a settlement you destroy some of this fertility making it harder for your horde faction to collect food should you ever temporarily or permanently settle in this land at the same time the game introduces a climate change mechanic making it so that the level of fertility decreases at particular Crossroads simulating a little ice age in this apocalyptic world food is therefore an important resource to keep in mind since it feeds your armies and keeps them loyal while keeping your settlements happy like in other Total Wars you are given a series of Victory conditions you must complete in order to win the campaign Attila however is divided into different chapters depending on your gameplay allowing you to fulfill certain conditions within the time limit which will let you sorely needed gold coins every chapter revolves around Attila in one way or another beginning with his birth and moving through the important stages of his life every new stage is introduced by medicine cutscene and together with the faction introductions they make for Unique experiences not really seen in Total War for a very long time what you'll quickly come to realize is that Total War Attila offers an insane amount of factions not only are there a ton of Nations to choose from right from the get-go but there are many non-playable of emerging factions you most likely will encounter throughout your game time many of these are potential Roman successor States like Italia and Gaul which will form if you ever lose certain regions to rebellions this adds a whole nother Dimension to the game as Romans will have to fight Romans and barbarians will face a divided Roman Empire which might even add more challenges because certain minor Roman factions may even be stronger in specific locations than the main one however Attila also allows you to use diplomacy much more effectively than in Rome too since many of the new Roman factions are one Province miners taking their city will effectively allow you the choice of either retaking it fully or make it your puppet creating a de facto buffer zone between your core Empire and the evading tribes then the armies you don't really need to pay for this makes diplomatic strategy a crucial aspect of Total War Attila especially if you want to maintain a large empire sadly the AI is far from perfect not yet having been given the cares in the newer Total War titles like three kingdoms or Troy trade is sometimes hard to achieve despite benefiting both Nations but at least now every faction leader has modifiers which will let you know if they might deal with you or not like if someone admires or hates strong Empires or other religions what's great is that Attila brings back the family tree and even vastly improves upon it the family and Generals are now more important than ever and you can hire family members and other Nobles to important military offices in addition to our Point governance your provinces making Attila into something of a role-playing game you can even select heirs adopt people into your family arrange marriages be corrupt in order to gather gold and gather support in order to maintain control of your faction it is perhaps the best implementation of the family tree ever over in a total war game and needs to be added into the next historical Total War title but Total War is not all about diplomacy and strategic Warfare like the name suggests it's also about Bloody real-time battles and glorious tactics it's on the battlefield where most wars are won after all and a good General takes advantage of both their soldiers and the terrain to turn the ties of battle a heroic Victory can often mean the difference between greatness and destruction even though the game rarely recognizes your victories as heroic the uniqueness of Total Wars that you control your arm is directly on the battlefield controlling hundreds and thousands of individual units rather than groups of five or ten it's a truly great experience until it brings with Eunice behaving better than in Rome 2 and the battles both look and feel career archers are deadly and so are Cavalry forcing you to really understand which units to use where at all times the units are also beautifully crafted and you'll definitely be able to tell the difference between Roman or Barbarian and a Persian army the battles you'll be fighting will depend on the faction you're playing as so expect a ton of initial defensive battles as the Roman factions and many more offensive battles as any other faction where Rome Total War Barbarian invasion was played more or less on the same map as the original Rome attila's campaign map is quite different from the one in Rome 2. the world is darker the weather more evident and there are more details to find it is still one of the most beautiful campaign maps in Total War history even six years after release I often feel compelled to just admire the battle map as thousands of soldiers clash and it's hard not to be overwhelmed at how epic Total War Attila can be the game is still not optimized for a newer multi-core CPUs so be prepared to need a good single core CPU and a great GPU to run the game properly but boy does this game look good at the highest settings if you're willing to pay for them Total War Attila offers some really great expansions as well in the first major expansion the belisarius campaign you take control of belisarius an Eastern Roman general tasked with reconquering the West for Emperor Justinian it's fun to play as a Roman horde faction even though you can also play as the newly established Barbarian kingdoms that have conquered former Roman territory in the second and in my opinion the best expansion you can you to play Centuries later as Charlemagne or other factions during that time on a centralized and massive map of Western Europe This is an early medieval time period where you must establish the Frankish Empire you can even conquer Europe as a Muslim Cordoba the Kingdom of Italy or establish an early Kingdom of England it's a great campaign and I love the attention to detail here with the units looking very different from the base game while the art style on the campaign map has been overhauled and is truly beautiful and reflecting the early and medieval time period Total War Attila is still an amazing game in 2021 and I highly recommend playing it if you are an old or new Total War fan it's got great variety and tons of replay value while offering many different campaigns and ways of playing those campaigns it's beautiful gritty detailed and vast and with the new family tree Governor system and a simply wonderful UI which in no way clutters the screen but still manages to provide detailed information Attila is perhaps the best Total War made in recent history if the time period of late Antiquity bores you you might want to hear what mods are available Total War Attila might just offer some of them most exciting Mall since Medieval 2 and I'll be listing some of them here first of all and perhaps most impressive and exciting for the traditional historical total war players is the medieval Kingdom's 1212ad mod for the Attila main game this mall changes the time period to 1212 a late medieval campaign where you can play as any faction from Norway to France to Egypt and Byzantium and attempt to reclaim the Empire's former glory as a sort of spiritual successor to the Eastern Roman Empire in the Attila made campaign here the modders are creating a fully functional Holy Roman Empire and a crusade and Jihad system the player can take advantage of the units are beautifully made and the faction mechanics like technology trees and buildings are fleshed out quite often it is a massive mod which allows you to change the music of the game with an add-on mod a modification which you can even use independently of the main mod this way you can hear that amazing Medieval 2 battle music while playing Attila and by the Lord if it is amazing [Music] I highly recommend checking out medieval Kingdom's 1212 A.D if you're into the medieval period but feel like Medieval 2 is getting a bit old the modders have done some truly amazing work here the next mod is called age of Vikings this is a mod for the Charlemagne expansion which fast forwards until after the split of the Frankish Empire and the Viking age here you can play as the different kingdoms vying to establish the Holy Roman Empire once and for all either as the eastern or western Frankish Empire or even Italy you can play as Viking Nations or Iberian ones and the units are updated to reflect the time period if you love the old gods time period from Crusader Kings 2 or the early started in Crusade against 3 then this is perhaps the perfect Total War alternative the third mod I wish to feature is the ancient empires mod if you want to go back to the Glory Days of Rome but this like Rome 2 when I want Attila features then this might be the perfect mod for you in ancient empires you begin the game during the Second Punic War and the factions buildings art style and units reflect time period it's really cool to be able to play there in the Golden Age of the Roman Republic but with the telemechanics and even though ancient empires isn't fully finished you can easily play a great campaign as Rome or other major factions furthermore you're able to download all Lord of the Rings custom battle mod with a possible campaign in the future you can download the radius Total War campaign overhaul mod which revamps the campaign with new units mechanics and Bug fixes and a ton of other smaller Quality of Life mods some which makes the Roman city models come from looking like decaying cities to actual Roman Stone a mod called the tetrarchy which allows you to play during the time of constantly the great and so on all in all Total War Attila is worth getting for the mods alone and with the wonderful campaigns and the exciting battles and mechanics it is perhaps the best total war game in the past 15 years [Music] Total War Saga Thrones of Britannia released at a strange time it came during a period where fantasy was all Total War was doing and was released as a sort of Band-Aid Style game for the historical fans out there that is after all what the saga games are in a way the ideas were good even exciting we would be able to play on a massive map of the British Isles and fight for dominance in a highly turbulent time perhaps more importantly this game came out arguably at the height of another game namely Paradox interactives Crusader Kings 2. indeed in the same year as ck2's best expansion ever holy Fury but let's get back to that later let's start with why throwzer Britannia sucked right from the get-go this game really got on my bad side and the biggest reason for that is the fact that Thrones Britannia is made using the same engine used in Total War Attila if you haven't been living under a rock you'll know that the Attila engine is Infamous for being the most laggy total war game ever made the difference between them though is that Attila is actually beautiful to look at and comes with mechanics which makes it fun to play throws up Tanya do not have these redeeming qualities take the campaign map in my oh so humble opinion Britannia is one of the most boring settings there are in terms of visual diversity there are few spectacular mountain ranges few impressive rivers and indeed the geographic diversity is extremely low sure we have some nice ugly bogs and marshes in England and some nice fjords and snow-covered lands in Scotland but it's also brown and green and just boring honestly and this is not to say that Britannia is inherently boring just take a quick look at Britannia as it's made in Rome 2 artilla indeed how it's beautifully made in Rise of Charlemagne coupled with the fact that the game is laggy as heck does it know favors and it all comes together to create a really Bland colorless murky and laggy Total War campaign map with no added benefits to make up for it but it doesn't stop there take a look at the UI it's cluttered as heck CA went for this weird blue toned UI which really reminds me of a mobile style UI and I really don't like it what's worse is the fact that again the campaign map is bothered by it there's no rest or emotion in having every city be represented by a massive name and faction symbol but even when turning these off the cities become hard to identify so you're left with bad UI design either way and I hate how the names just pop in at the top of the screen there the game even reverses attila's great city building UI and goes back to a Rome 2 style 1. having each building be represented by a cartoon image rather than something more realistic the same thing goes for the character portraits and even though this is a stylistic choice I personally am not a fan further it would have been nice if there were more Unique city models on the map because everything just looks the same really even though there might be some minute differences here and there there's also something about the scale of the game that just seems off yeah sure we have a massive map of Britannia but where are the major events with impactful choices and consequences where is the flavor where is the political Intrigue between factions with large events I could really make for a unique Viking age experience there are indeed some smaller ones concerning characters and factions but they're not nearly enough okay so remember when I mentioned ck2 well we're back at it now because Thrones of Britannia actually tried here it kind of tried to double down on the governor's system in Attila allowing us to delegate Estates to various generals which made them richer and more loyal I'm all for a system like this but it was just never as fun as intended and the cartoony profiles and lack of personalities which ck2 had in buckets made the entire system come off as half-assed so the game's arguably most Innovative system was not even that fun it did something that was genuinely cool though the game lets you recruit units from a global pool but only get a full stack unit over time meaning that there is no real way to surprise attack your enemies with a full Army out of nowhere this mustering period is an actual cool idea but also kinda helps to slow down an already quite boring and slow game and speaking of slow let's talk about the battles this time period is not necessarily known for its unit diversity either and even though you'll have access to some Cavalry you'll mostly deal with spear or sword and shield infantry spear throwers Slingers and the like these types of units are by no means inherently bad but when this is all there is and we neither have spectacular new graphics performance or battle map changes to spice things up it really does get old and boring fast unless you're some massive fan of this combat style in particular it all just looks and feels like a subset of the Barbarian factions in Attila but again now with less diversity and other cool features it's true that the siege battle maps are somewhat overhauled with a few more wall options and such but it does very little to fix the overall impression that this is just an Attila reskin with less diversity I'm in no way hiding that I did not like Thrones or Britannia and the reasons I've stated are indeed the reasons I believe helped seal the games fate as a failure at the time of writing the game only had 145 concurrent players less than half of what the original Rome Total War had at the same time I am personally never inherently against any new Total War game I go in with interest and judge based on what is there but what was there in Thrones was just awful and based on player feedback steam player counts and even overall Steam Reviews which for some reason has hit an uptick in the past months because of God knows what but yeah maybe it's the shield wall mod which adds an actual population mechanic most people agree with me this game was ruined by atrocious performance no new visual enhancements unfun campaign mechanics and a lack of diversity both on the campaign map and the battle map and that my friends is why Thrones or Britannia failed I think it's a shame with this game honestly because it really was sabotaged by the fact that CH also used the worst engine they've ever made coupled with one of the worst uis they've ever made this game has none of the charm or color that the Kingdom's Britannia campaign had and that was indeed a return to something great I would have liked to see in the last few years the total war Series has become known for its massive fantasy titles most notably the Warhammer games since 2016 this fantasy DNA has crept into the series other games the largest of these being Total War 3 Kingdoms this game set in ancient China has experienced massive success in the past years and many were notably upset when development on the game stopped after about two years of expansions and an announcement of a spiritual sequel coming sometime in the future I've never been much of a fan of Chinese history and Three Kingdoms never really excited me all that much I played it at launch and liked it only to stop a few weeks later seeing as this game is still experiencing success though I thought it was time to return to China giving you an up-to-date review of the game and taking a look at What Makes Three Kingdoms stand apart in an easy to understand and to the point way and now Total War Three Kingdoms we begin with the campaign and I want to begin with the obvious and the aspects which really hit the eyes first because they've meant so much for my enjoyment or lack thereof in this game Three Kingdoms as a first in the total war series is exclusively set in ancient China far away from the familiar lands of Europe and its neighborhood it's a massive change in several ways most eye-cashingly so in terms of geography total worthy kingdoms makes use of a noticeably well updated engine this time which means night and day in terms of visuals and performance when compared to the likes of Attila and Warhammer 2. its impact is perhaps felt the most on the grand campaign map and I really do mean Grand China is enormous in terms of land mass and scale in this game really showcasing how far to the war has come and its quest for a representation of geography as it is in real life the new engine Sports a stylistic change here turning away from the more realistic look of the European games to a more culturally distinct look we see this move everywhere from the way mountains are represented now being tall and rounded as in a painting to the forest and rivers stretching across the land and including the cities feeling a bit less tangible now almost as if they're placed by a stroke of the brush aesthetically China has been made as beautiful and distinct as can be then neither looking like its European counterparts nor what we have seen in the more recent more realistic yet somehow uniquely stylistic Troy map there's very little negative to say about the art Direction itself here and I commend the artists for their wonderful work however when it comes to playability and how the visuals factor in here the picture changes somewhat I'm only speaking for myself here so your background might differ from mine that being said I'm no Chinese geography expert and even though it might be on my end then I generally do not believe that the Chinese geography lends itself well to Total War games and perhaps strategy games on this scale in general and I'll explain why take the Mediterranean the theater of the majority of Total War Games I am of the mind that there is no more beautiful and appropriate place to be when building an empire you see here at the intersection between East and West we have such clearly defined geographical landmasses each land mass is so clearly outlined whether we're talking about Iberia Italy Greece or turkey all uniquely shaped and partially surrounded by water we have the beautiful curves of North Africa and the Levant and whether we're talking about Arabia or Britain no area is either too large nor similar to other places on the map back to China then and a situation is turned on its head China is essentially one giant piece of land with no large bodies of water to separate one Kingdom from another and make it that much easier to know where you are defend your flanks or plan where to go next and this is where the visuals come in as beautiful as they are I actually have a rather hard time of getting my bearings since around 90 percent of China consists of large Open Fields separated only by small rivers or copy pasted Lonely Mountain chains there's just something about the art style that makes me feel like what I'm seeing isn't really there especially when it comes to the cities which all look more or less similar and have no unique buildings appear as you build them at least with my knowledge this might sound nitpicky to many and that's completely understandable but to me this sense that there are no beautiful islands or peninsulas to look at or even to break up the landmasses and further that you're virtually always surrounded by factions exactly because of China's Geographic layout is partially reason why I just don't have as much fun here everything is actually made worse in my opinion when we factor in the UI I'll just say it Total War 3 Kingdoms has the absolute worst UI in the history of Total War Games it's just plain painful to look at and has been a big factor in me not playing the game more that's not to say it's ugly in fact it's quite the opposite I think the artwork is absolutely gorgeous beat for faction events building chains or the research tree but again the style just completely hampers the utility and gameplay value for me I think it first and foremost comes down to style over utility the UI is essentially black and white extremely contrasted and makes it at times physically hard to read what's going on when events pop up time and time again when clicking on cities the building UI Shades the lower part of the screen and even the small factor of the black background somehow makes it much harder to understand what's going on especially when so many of the building artworks kind of look similar at first glance there's been much talk of how beautiful the technology tree is and I would agree but I also think it's the least readable tree we've ever gotten it's often hard to know which Tech belongs to which branches and I often feel like I'm just clicking on new tech willy-nilly because the sense of progression is so divided into piecemeal ups and downs compared to for example attila's very straightforward system in addition I have a personal Vendetta against the way cities are represented in this game and I'm talking about two things here first are the city banners the banners all endowed with the face and faction banners of their owners simply take up way too much space on the screen and there's no way to independently turn them off or reduce them along with the rest of the UI which is tacked onto virtually every corner they simply clog up the screen and essentially forces you to zoom all the way down if you want a clear picture of your Realm second I absolutely believe that CA should have come up with another approach to cities in this game China simply hosts so many enormous cities that there are virtually endless of them wherever you look and there's little room for else instead I think they should have gone with something more similar to the Shogun 2 model perhaps cutting the amount of cities in three but instead leaving a bunch of smaller towns that served as farmland or other sources of production lastly and I promise this is the last round I'll go on and again this is a personal grievance which I might be alone in feeling regardless there are simply too many factions on offer here and now you might ask how that can possibly be a bad thing well I'll tell you and a word of advice don't doubt my ability to find negatives in great games you're gonna lose every time now Rome 2 is considered one of the largest Total War Games ever and the original Grand campaign Sports a staggering 117th actions spread across the entirety of Europe North Africa and West Asia these factions have unique names like Rome Carthage Macedon and bactria and clicking on a faction in the diplomacy menu which you can only really do if you've encountered this at faction takes you straight to them so you always know where they are enter three kingdoms where the original campaign rise of the Warlords Sports and unbelievable 190 factions raced all the way up to 281 in the eight princes campaign now I feel the need to reiterate that I am neither an expert on Chinese history nor familiar with the Romance of the Three Kingdom stories so this might first and foremost stem from my lack of familiarity with China's history and names having said that you might understand my frustration and perplexity when faced with hundreds of actions all named after individual people not distinct Nations or kingdoms or even simple Dynasty names and I will be butchering these names so I apologize for this in advance before an uneducated European instead of seeing faction names like the kingdom of way or Shu Han which we might once the Three Kingdoms are actually forged are met with separate factions named Juan Xiao and one Shu Liu Bao and liub and Liu die the and Liu seeing how this is the case I often get into situations where some people I have no familiarity with have names so similar to others that it takes me a while to understand who I'm dealing with or who the heck is showing up in my notifications about War and Peace even worse is that if a faction leader dies the name of the successor becomes a new name of satisfaction creating even more confusion it doesn't help that the faction Banners are so similar as well despite maybe sporting different colors faction ownership is not nearly as clear as in any other strategy game I've ever played now I realize doing this in any other way in terms of names would be anachronistic but this just makes this aspect an inherent downside of this era of Chinese history for me what makes matters worse is that the diplomacy interface which we will get back to is so bad when it comes to faction and placement Clarity what I mean by this is that you can actually negotiate with factions you haven't met on the campaign map yet and so when trying to see where this faction actually exists you can't this means dealing with people you have no idea where they are which makes for a frustrating diplomatic experience again it kind of boils down to Simply how much is on offer here be it land mass or cities or factions or people and in this case I really am of the mind that much less is indeed much more and with that rant over Total War 3 Kingdoms campaign mechanics ushered in what I believe can only be called a turning point in the total war franchise namely because it changed things up in two important areas the first is faction diversity and Unique Mechanics in Three Kingdoms as a first for at least semi-historical Total Wars each playable faction comes with their very own innate fashion mechanics and strengths of a completely different magnitude than what we'd seen before you can now choose your faction based on what kind of playstyle you want meaning that one faction like that of sausal focuses on Military expansion and Intrigue providing you with a spicy slightly more diplomatic takeover on the traditional Total War campaign while another fashion like that of Kong wrong highly focus on trade expansion essentially having one of total War's first tall faction campaigns offering their own spin on things and makes every faction you play as so much more unique than in previous games the second aspect is diplomacy itself which partially branches out of these new faction mechanics total war finally took a page from the book of paradox this time and let us not only negotiate trade agreements but create unique vassal types and then next them afterwards coalitions trade regions and most importantly made negotiating the best it's ever been by showing us How likely a faction is to agree to a proposal by the Numbers this revolutionizes diplomacy and since CA would go on to implement the same system in a total war Saga Troy I have really high hopes that we will see it taken further into the next major historical title as well further a cool mechanic known as Prestige where you attempt to reach the highest stairs of power in China which will open up diplomatic opportunities and gameplay changes is something every faction will strive for what's cool is that even though expanding your territory might be the traditional way of collecting Prestige it's not the only way for smaller focused factions it's enough to be rich as heck and manage to construct higher tier buildings for a nice Prestige boost that way instead the climax of this is the creation of the titular Three Kingdoms which creates the End Game Challenge of having to wage war against two other massive kingdoms now with easy to remember names at the same time all of this comes together to create a campaign that while sometimes without much Direction tension or purpose seems much more deliberately designed and balanced than other Total War games and that is a good sign for the future I think finally we have the character system which is the deepest one yet characters can be given retinos and items which impact their skills and abilities and the same goes for the level system which one must pay attention to if you want new abilities and Buffs for both your general and the units under their command and speaking of armies we have an interesting new system here armies are now divided into General's red news essentially having a maximum of three generals per Army Eastern will can further command up to 6 units each and the type of units available are determined by the type of general that commands them so only a strategist will be able to recruit trebuchets for example it's an interesting system and definitely adds to strategic thinking but I can't help but feel like the lack of actual Army Barracks is determining which units you can recruit which has always been the norm in these games is quite confusing at first but has the long lasting impact of not making me as attached to my cities as in other games since there is no real need to protect them in order to secure a special Elite Barracks for example I do enjoy though that the new labor career units need to be mustered before they're fully ready for battle by far the most awesome thing about Three Kingdoms in my opinion apart from the diplomacy changes of course are the genuinely fantastic battles which just keeps baffling me are how gorgeous these scenes are I think three kingdoms is the first Total War game where I cannot find any flaws with the battle maps when it comes to visual Fidelity not only are they so stylistically amazing trees looking crisp Fields being large yet easy to cross sporting gorgeous skies and equally beautiful Reflections but more importantly the units in this game are so detailed and of such high quality that I'm running out of hyperbolic words to use for them some of these scenes are taken straight out of the movies and even though the same could be said for many total war games it has never been more true than right here to top it all off it all runs so smoothly and I'm so appreciative of the developers optimization work in this game what's more is how things actually works and feels and even here Three Kingdoms does an excellent job it's easier than ever to move your units around the battlefield and I love how your formations are not instantly messed up when reorganizing them to another location and speaking of locations the maps feel like actual real-life fields and locations now never putting you in awful steep places but offering Fields with several strategic Hills for you to tactically place your armies on I also like the flow of Siege battles with units seeming a lot more aware of where they are and how to get to places and because things don't really lag as much has a much better sense of functionality to them but perhaps the coolest thing is how powerful Cavalry Charges are as you can really feel the impact of dozens of trampling horses crashing into a unit of infantry the collision and sense of physics in Three Kingdoms really does feel like a big step up from previous Total War Games in my opinion and are just a pleasure to play if there is one thing I personally think is somewhat of a downside it's how similar the units are both within and across factions while some units beautifully stand out being clad in heavy armor and looking unique the majority of the units and this goes for virtually every faction look more or less like peasant units just in different colors contrasted with a more heavily armored or unique looking European units during the equivalent Roman or medieval eras is a stark contrast then and even though I can't complain too much because this is a kind of historical authentic thing it's another inherent aspect of ancient China which to me makes the game a bit less fun than another setting or time period could have been either way there is something so culturally and stylistically unique about this game which has been so amazingly translated to the battlefields as well and it's just impressive honestly I love love love the inclusion of banner carriers for example it was completely negates the need for floating UI banners hovering over every unit there's just a sense of competence and understanding that I don't think I've seen in another total war game that I'm honestly baffled and imagining this level of perfection in a Total War era just a tad closer to my heart honestly gives me butterflies I couldn't sleep last night because I imagined a future medieval 3 and roam 3 and Empire 2 looking and playing this perfect and that's perhaps biggest compliment I can give this game of course there is the matter of romance and Records mode giving the vibe of this being more or less a supernatural game but for the most part this is relegated to the battles in Romance mode the characters will be god-like heroes taking on entire armies by themselves and for this reason I much prefer the records mode where generals are tied to General's bodyguard units like in previous historical Total Wars luckily it's up to you to choose which mode you want to play so it's 2022 and creative assembly has by now long since stopped the development on this game after several major updates and expansions mostly keeping the same campaign map but changing the time period to include different factions units and scenarios in other words should you play Three Kingdoms now when it's all there and complete and nice and tidy I'd say it first and foremost comes down to your preference of setting and location game mechanically Three Kingdoms is close to Perfection innovating in every area of gameplay visuals and performance it definitely stumbles in certain areas like in his hard to read UI due to the sheer amount of objects on the screen is high contrast menus and style over utility interface but it also excels in terms of battles and scale offering something quite unlike anything Total War has offered in the past if you don't have the same nagging relationship with the game's UI and setting in fact if you like it or even find them interesting it3 kingdoms is a must play as on its own most of what is here is quite astonishing really but if you're like me and you can definitely enjoy the battles and aspects of the campaign but have little interest in Chinese history or be prone to finding the UI frustrating I'd say wait for a deep sail or perhaps don't bother at all as Total War Games generally demand a lot of time and energy to play and your time is better spent in a total war game you really think you'll love rather than when you just feel so so about that being said Three Kingdoms is overall a competent and Innovative tour war game I'm glad he's here as it really proved what creative assembly is capable of and I cannot wait to see where they will take this inspiration and Newfound Joy of complexity in the future [Music] it's a strange feeling coming back to Rome after all these years admittedly I've been playing Rome Turtle were off and on since then so coming back is no major shock on the contrary it's the welcoming feeling of coming home Back to Where it All Began only now the house has been renovated to look more modern and Sleek the danger is of course that there's been too much work that it doesn't resemble what you remember or that what's new changes things so much that it just doesn't feel right anymore for the most part though Romer master has done a really good job at balancing the new and the older the campaign was always beautifully Timeless but the update genuinely makes it look even better despite some of the mountains with the kind of weird and standoutish but I love the Reflections in the water the map updated with more noticeable and varied textures so you can actually see where Farmland is a plenty I found the map a bit too vibrant to begin with though so I'm happy I was able to turn vibrancy setting down as much as I wanted furthermore I love the way the cities look now much more reminiscent of the way City models looked in the mild Roma's rectum for the original Rome Total War and the generals also look like they have much more depth I think this is in large part due to the Shadow and lighting engine which really makes the objects look a lot more present in the world the same goes for the coastlines which I absolutely love and feel kinda framed the whole world into the game somehow so we've established that the campaign map is gorgeous but what about the battles well they arguably look even better again Rome was always a beautiful game groundbreaking when it came out in 2004. even now it looks extremely sharp and clean still the units all look the same they had little depth to them and for today's standards that's just not up to par but ROM remastered fixes this by again placing real world shadows and new lighting into the game updating the unit models themselves to look more realistic even making the units look different from each other and going so far as making the units reflect the region of recruitment that's awesome while some of the sharpness of the original might be lost somewhat I think it's a good bargain we've made here and Romo Master looks a lot more like ROM 1.5 than the original even the cities have been updated air so the whole image looks so much better when we Factor everything in the fact that the game just runs infinitely smoother is another reason for celebration so instead of chugging at around 30 FPS which the whole game did I'm almost always hitting frames between 100 and 144 it's also great that we can now play as more or less every faction in the game from the get-go and of course you can just play with or without the remastered modifiers but there's another perhaps equally important part as well the user interface Rome Total Wars UI is not only classic as heck but it's easy to use has no meaningless windows and makes good use of the screen space even though today we were probably like it to be a tad smaller but still Rome showed us everything we needed a nice realistic looking minimap an overview space and an action space additionally clicking on a city opened the new and easy to manage window which it could open further we had large pictures and easy to read text and there was really nothing wrong with any of this the notifications were simple to spot the messages large and clear and I guess the only bad thing was that once you had cleared them you couldn't really get them back all in all though Rome's UI was great and especially for its time so then was changed well only everything the UI is now much more minimalistic even though clicking through different icons will open larger Windows where you can gain the same in-depth information as before when it comes to units and buildings however pictures are made smaller and you're going to have to squint a bit more if you wish to read those descriptions this change including the rounded symbols have been getting criticism for looking too much like a mobile games UI and I'm inclined to agree it's not optimal and it feels like the developer hasn't really thought of making as much use of the screen space as they should have especially for those unit or building descriptions they could have even added wholly new things that weren't in the original which I'm glad I did with one aspect namely the family tree window which just looks so good what I don't like design wise though is the fact that there are now menus at every corner of the screen instead of just at the bottom or a combination of top and bottom I found the mini map to look absolutely atrocious and arcadey due to an overly simplistic and weirdly colored look and this doubles for the overlay map look which looks so childish and unfinished compare this to the UI in Attila which is freaking awesome is minimalistic but easy to use and the overlay map which is simply so beautiful further the fact that event messages are divided into three just makes no sense and the fact that you have to open them individually just feels like a chore to do every time there has to be a better way to do this one does get used to the new UI though and I especially love that both images of cities and units have been updated to look fresher and sharper than ever and that so much of the image is present when not using it lastly I wholly love the fact that every city has a symbol of their faction by their side and that names are carved into marble backgrounds but the test that we can no longer see how much money each City makes at any given time since I love paying attention to the growth of each town without having to enter any menus this was done especially while in Shogun 2 where you could even see if your series were growing or declining and every turn at a glance in some land there are definitely good qualities to this UI it's clear it's minimalistic and it has some really nice upscaled images and text including the buildings unit cards and the city symbols and names on the campaign map but it's far from perfect and I wish it was more PC focused than it seems the same goes for the UI on the battle map it's rather nice and minimalistic but again there's something about the color scheme or the rounded edges that just feels a bit off and now let's move over to the battle shall we that's what we're all here for right well what can I say it's Rome Total War For Better or Worse sometimes better as when you see your handsome units sieging down a city holding the line before emptying their backpacks a p-line to incoming barbarians or when your fan lengths shreds enemy Cavalry to Pieces no questions asked there's a lot to love about the old Rome battle system especially the organic combat system without overly matched combat sequences that look weird or out of place here everyone's a soldier with hit points and armor values and they know it and we love it so it's great so what's bad about these battles well sadly the AI is absolute most of the time it can't recognize a defensive position if it meant in its face and when they're defending they will rarely move forward to attack you even if you have a ranged superiority and will cut them down from afar this makes playing on very hard the only choice as you will most likely win virtually every battle you play unless you meet significantly more powerful enemy units what's perhaps worse is your own unit pathfinding I specifically do not play extreme unit size because I know it can cause problems but even on Ultra units will not know what the hell to do with themselves in city streets either taking forever to get somewhere get information or just I don't know what the crap this is it's honestly quite a shock sometimes to going back to Rome and experiencing this level of a competency from the AI and it's even more shocking that more hasn't been on to fix it in this remaster more work clearly needs to be done here either by developers or by the Blessed modders of the total war Community there are definitely shortcomings to run remastered whether we're talking about a partially unoptimized for PC UI or a relatively broken Battlefield Ai and finding it's clear that more could have been done to make this game more challenging and more satisfying but those aspects are relatively minor compared to the overall impression which is that Rome Total War has been revived for a new generation it's so much more beautiful so much more modern looking while to a degree retaining the look of the original and I love that the old mechanics are still in the game such as each City being able to construct whatever you want them to with no restrictions that you can have as many armies as you'd like on the campaign map and that you actually need Siege weapons to invade a wall settlement how the hell is this still not a thing CA make it happen go back and of course the view City on battle map in peacetime ability CA make it so again it's so immersive you can do it we believe in you we even have an actual Chad population number which increases and decreases based on your actions instead of the Virgin growth per turn bar found in many of the later games what still sucks is that cities will simply oust you if they revolt for a few turns but you know what sometimes we gotta live the hardcore life but this is something they could have considered changing to the more Progressive Revolt system I think but what's more is that both expansions have received a remastered treatment so we can finally once more return to late Antiquity with the Western and Eastern Roman Empire fighting for their lives or the Alexander Campaign which admittedly offers the most up map in any Total War campaign to date I mean what is this what even is Greece and where is Old tatsiki gone what's really awesome though is that Rome remastered has steamed Workshop integration so you see this mod this one right here the one that will hopefully allow us to truly relive The Glory Days of Total War yeah you can just click subscribe and the mod will be downloaded and installed directly to your game it's that simple it's that great and more mods will most likely come out every day or week so be sure to check out the Steam Workshop for the latest in the Rome remastered modding scene in short Romer Master is great but there is one thing we need one small thing which would change everything say it with me now CA online multiplayer campaigns okay perhaps two things online multiplayer campaigns and local hot seat campaigns bring them back here we know you can do it [Music] people what have you done it's been a weird year for Total War Saga Troy it originally released as a Time exclusive on the epic game store to the dismay of fans used to using the much better steam store where you have native mod integration and discussion forums but hey here we are I guess a year later and to the joy of what I hope amongst you thousands Troy is now on Steam and I say hope because Troy was a rather daring new game for CA when it first came out Troy takes place during the legendary Trojan Wars having the the nons in Greece face off against the Trojans in Ionia it was supposed to be this historical Total War but one where the myths of The Iliad came to life by offering something in between the mythological and the realistic it worked so so but not really pleasing neither the historical Puritans nor the hardcore fantasy crowd on launch I loved it for its creative new ideas it's amazing campaign mechanics absolutely beautiful visuals and marvelous UI even though I found the battles to be somewhat lacking but that's not all we're getting this time around as CA has decided to rather massively expand tourist campaign options so let's get to it shall we this is a review of the complete version of a total war Saga Troy where I will quickly enter the point explain and analyze the various options Troy now offers and tell you which ones you might prefer and why and I think we'll all have more fun if we start right away with the coolest thing Troy now offers a real campaign Choice allowing you to pick exactly the type of campaign you want essentially Troy has now been split in three the original campaign with the truth behind the myth approach a sort of Middle Ground between history and fantasy the historical campaign where the myth is all but completely gone and where the heroes of the wars are no longer superheroes with magical powers or supernatural creatures running around and the Mythos Campaign which goes all in on the mythological including things like a revamped campaign map with ancient statues and buildings mythical monsters reminiscent of the ones found in the Warhammer games which really changed up the campaign and heroes that are truly gods among men if one wanted to spice up a game and repackage it as a completely new experience I think this is the perfect approach as both of the new campaigns offer something for everyone it has a little something for everyone no matter your preference and that is something quite rare let's go through the new stuff then beginning with the Mythos campaign first of all I just want to say that Mythos is a perfect addition to Troy and the reason for this is that Troy is already a mythological tale of Heroes and gods playing with and fighting one another Mythos then mimics this by making recently Aegean a truly breathtakingly beautiful place not only does it look like it always did a colorful spectacle of gorgeous blue oceans and Lush terrain but on top of this we now find massive relics of what must be the gods left behind in this magical ancient mythical world whether it's massive beacons ancient ruins grand fallen apart statues or yeah you see that literal hydras this world has never looked as alive and vibrant as right now this is also reflected in the battle maps having these ruins be represented there as well and the sky somehow seem more dramatic yet fittingly so at the same time we can now even recruit mythical units doing away with the old semi-realistic tone and going all in with the supernatural centaurs actual terrifying flying harpies or really powerful beasts of War lending you a hand you can even hunt down and recruit The Baddest of Them All giving you a true estrogen battle and looking absolutely badass at the same time I think Mythos is such a great choice for this game because it just leans into what makes the old mythological tale so fascinating to begin with and combined with the mechanics that were already in the game like the religion system with giving offerings to the gods and the supernaturally strong homeric Heroes it all just comes together really well and that was the Mythos mode but what about the historical mode well everything that makes Mythos Mythos has been Stripped Away leaving us with the fundamental Bare Bones in the best sense of the word now every trace of the Gods and the Ancients have been Stripped Away and we get a beautiful clean and a bit less of a saturated map as well if I'm not mistaken this makes the entire map look more calm and realistic as the colors have been toned down somewhat but it really helps to sell the historical part of course this also means no hydras in the ocean no flying harpies and no Supernatural monsters on the campaign or on the battlefield if we consider how much Mythos leans into the mythical part historical mode is a massive change as well especially and first and foremost on the battlefield where we now have to rely on Old tried and true tactics even though I loved Mythos there really is something special about the non-supernatural and how all of a sudden maneuvering and using every little Advantage you may have to its limit becomes Alpha Omega I truly cherish my archers and my chariots now and I love that our heroes even though they still have certain buff and debuff abilities are a part of a larger unit now but that they at the same time act like extra powerful soldiers so you're never that scared to send them into battle making Choi much more like the generals of Medieval 2 rather than the generals of Empire and if you ever sent your general into battle in Empire I think you know what I'm talking about you're still able to use the gods powers for campaign or battle Buffs so there still is an element of the supernatural hair but I like to think that this is implied rather than real because the people treat the situation as if the gods were there to help them there is no longer an actual Godly ability during battles after all so every actual magical power has been Stripped Away and those were the new modes for Troy and I actually do think that both of these are massive improvements over what the original game mode was up until now it's almost fascinating how much cooler more beautiful and just interesting Troy has become with either of these options and yet they both complement an already Charming game I say Charming because Troy always held a soft spot for me because Troy isn't just about the campaign map or the battle map what Troy did extremely well to begin with was exactly how it managed to take a historical albeit somewhat mythological setting and give each faction completely different modifiers and ways to play for example goldrich Agamemnon is an Empire Builder and receives large boost if it vassalizes the factions around him men allows of sparrow can colonize nearby empty settlements by using resources instead of armies Hector of Troy becomes stronger the more allies he has and needs to compete with his brother for his father's love in an exciting Mini-Game where almost every action increases or decreases his approval of you and Soul 2 must Paris of Troy fight for his father's love but he must also maintain his actual love Helen of choice affection and cannot stay away from her for too long unless she turns sad and depressed with some major negative consequences for your faction in addition a fun religion mechanic with competing Gods allow you to tailor your focus and faction strengths to your liking and an easy to understand yet important technology tree and a currency system where there's no money involved at all yet where food wood Stone bronze and gold is traded and Bartered dominates the world is amazing it's a truly fascinating and different experience Troy gives us and it's all managed and administered to the backdrop of the most beautiful user interface I have ever seen in a total war game with absolutely gorgeous artworks and backgrounds littering every menu and window when a total war Saga Troy released a year ago I thought it was a fine game but one where the battle suffered the most now a year later the battles are so much more fun because of the mythological uni-diversity and the historical restrictions while the games absolutely Charming foundations remain with the Mythos update I honestly believe Troy has become one of the finest Total War titles to date as long as you find the era and setting interesting of course it's also interesting that the game is heavily mod supported now so it will definitely be interesting to see how the game will evolve now that it arrives on Steam the massive beautiful map of the early Greek world the stunning battlefields an ambient soundtrack which finally manages to compete with the best of what Total War has to offer a multiplayer campaign and a UI and campaign mechanics will just never quit it all comes together here now with more Choice than ever and if Troy Ever Needed fixing then this reboot seems reforged with the hammer of the feistos himself and if you were ever curious about this most mythical of Wars you've never had a better excuse to pick up Troy than right now [Music] well that was every Total War Game reviewed since the original Rome I think this video shows a few key aspects of this series as a whole namely that despite Innovations in visuals Total War Has Changed For Better or Worse depending on whether we're talking modernizations simplifications or the focus of the series I for one hope the next big historical game will look to its roots and deliver a game that both feels and plays like a true Total War Revolution cheers

Channel: Andy's Take

Views: 201,643

Keywords: total war series, total war series review, every total war game review, total war game review 2022, rome total war review, medieval 2 total war review, empire total war review, napoleon total war review, shogun 2 total war review, fall of the samurai total war review, rome 2 total war review, attila total war review, thrones of britannia total war review, three kingdoms total war review, a total war saga troy review, total war 2022 review, best total war game, total war 2022

Id: P6sqY_srBac

Length: 169min 57sec (10197 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Total_Scott]

Have we not had thousands of reviews on these titles by now?

[u/ElPinguinator]

No I don't need to. I enjoy the games I love and Don t enjoy the ones I don't like. Your opinion won't change it.