It's All Kicked Off, Sire! Into battle with Medieval Total War

Posted by: Paul Smith

A dark, disease ridden era in which non existent social mobility, fear, war, and religious fanaticism dominated the increasingly apathetic and supine populations of western Europe. But hey - it's time to forget contemporary society, shake off a few centuries and dive headlong into the middle ages for a right old dust up.

Of course, 'Total War' itself was conceptually impossible in the middle ages, largely because the idea of nationhood as we understand it had yet to evolve, but also because the industrial infrastructure required to support an all out war effort involving every member of a society simply did not exist. Happily, in the interests of turning out a quantum-leaping mind bomb of a game, designer Mike Brunton and developers The Creative Assembly decided to ignore all that and concentrate instead on charging through Europe and the Middle East at lance point. So oil up your metal underwear, stock up on wild boar sandwiches and mead, and prepare to release ye dogs of warre.

Taking place across a (beautifully drawn) map covering a big oblong from Ireland to Antioch and Sweden to the Sahara, the player moves his forces about the place in an attempt to carve out an empire for his faction, defeat his rascally opponents, and so forth. In this aspect, much is as you might expect: a choice of factions depending upon the starting point selected (early, high or late middle ages), all the major players (the English, the French, the Spanish etc), trade routes to dominate, civic advances to build - a game can take on many, many twists and turns as it develops. One thing is certain, though: sooner or later, it's going to get to fisticuffs.

And what a selection of military personnel there are on hand to oblige. From actual peasants dragged from the pub and told to stand still while enemy knights dice them, to elite halbadier regiments who march across the battlefield in tight formation like a giant and many-legged lawnmower - all are produced in your towns, which evolve as you 'buy' improvements, based upon tax revenue. You essentially achieve martial law in your territories by stationing enough troops to deter the local populace from rising in arms against you - this is particularly likely if your ruling faction is of a different religion, which is one of the subtleties of Medieval Total War. Thus far, the game has come across as a fairly straightforward build-stuff-and-kill-your-enemies-with-it affair. While this is largely true, victory is impossible without a mastery of the intricacies of medieval society. Whole armies of the latest heavily armed and highly skilled men at arms will not save you if one of your sons decides to rebel and half your hard-won empire sails out of view. Indeed, the more extensive and powerful you become as a faction, the more likely it is that greedy offspring or disgruntled nobles will turn against you. In time, this will necessitate a network of spies and double agents to keep tabs on everyone, and, if necessary to bump them off or frame them as heretics. You can always marry your daughters to potential rivals, thus welding them to your cause - however, do this with a foreign power and you might accidentally give them a legitimate heir to your throne, which will spark civil war.

To return to religion, though. There are only three: Catholic, Muslim and Unorthodox. If you're thinking of a large scale invasion of the Middle East, you'll need to spend years bombarding the place with bishops and cardinals and so forth, to lessen the shock when your chainmail-clad infidel nutters turn up on the doorstep demanding bacon sandwiches, lap dancing and 24hr booze licenses. Similarly, you'll need to be getting your clerics and imams on the ball before advancing on Venice at scimitar-point. Representatives of other religions are an easy target for assassins, which makes the battle for hearts and minds all the more tricky.

Battles in which hearts and minds are splattered all over the battlefield are easier to get to grips with. They are also stunning. Thousands of individually moving troops having it out in a field in Flanders is what this game is all about, at least at a tactical level. The AI is cunning enough to exploit blunders, too, so here is a quick lesson in medieval field tactics: keep your archers behind your foot soldiers, and keep your cavalry on your flanks. Ideally, your foot soldiers will engage with your enemy's, 'pinning' the blighters while your archers fire volley after volley into them and your cavalry sweep round the flanks and gives them a rare old rogering from behind. If it wasn't that your opponent will be trying to do the same thing, it would be simple. Although intimidating for the novice player, battles evolve with the game - early on, your armies will consist of a few hundred spearmen and peasants, but by the time you are ushering in the Renaissance to the booming of primitive artillery, you can expect to be leading vast hordes of glittering violencemen.

It is indicative of the genius of this game that the single most important thing you need to do has nothing to do with slaughtering foes and waging Holy War. This is not a game in which 'you' actually exist. You play a faction, with a different King (or Emir, or whatever) inheriting the throne as family members die, are assassinated, or are killed on the battlefield. If you haven't already seen the iceberg, here it is: no matter how extensive and powerful your territories are, if you don't have a male heir to take the crown when your king dies, it's game over. This can lead to nervous times when your existing ruler is in a fragile state and his only male heir has not yet come of age by reaching 14 without dying. Get some sons!

So there we are. While being about as subtle as a brick in a spider's web, Medieval Total War is challenging because you need to be both brick and web. There's enough here to keep anyone absorbed for weeks, as long as they like armed clashes and killing, which in the middle ages a great many people did. No wonder they went on for so long.
 

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