Mmmmm, I'm in love

I know what I'm going to be playing for the next month or two

 

Yeah, looks great. I'm not usually an RTS fan, and only like them when they're totally combat orientated (Generals, CoH, Dawn of War etc), but this is as good a reason as you'll get to give the genre another go.

 

heh, the actual battles in Total War games are much more combat oriented than stuff like CoH and DoW. (no base building or recruiting troops. Just two huge armies clashing)

But yeah, then there's the entire turnbased campaign (which, in my opinion, still rocks) which isn't really "combat orientated"

 

Amen Brother, I'll be first in line on tuesday to get my hands on this game. The demo was awesome, and they were just premade battles. Can't wait.

 

I'll get there eventually. I'm still enjoying Rome TW myself. And I still have to crack into the Barbarian Invasion Expansion I have installed .

 

There's also the Alexander the Great expansion for Rome as well. Looks like you have a way to go until you get to Medieval 2

 

Trust me, if this is anything like the original Medieval, it'll leave Rome in the dust. You don't want to waste your time on RTW + expansions when this baby comes out.....

Seriously though, Medieval had (and Medieval 2 promises to have) so much more depth than Rome. Battles are more tactical with more varied unit types, more varied terrain and slightly slower pace.

And the campaign map is an entirely different game in Medieval. You have tons of features they removed from Rome. Like the ability to declare war on, get excommunicated by, or replace, the pope. There are crusades and jihads, the ability to tell your princesses who to marry, and much wider-ranging diplomacy (a favorite of mine in the old Medieval was to assassinate my own king. Not because it was very useful, but because it's so **** cool that it's possible )

And this doesn't even touch on the additions of merchants, of cities and castles being separate upgrade paths and the much bigger and more varied number of competing factions with different goals.

And of course, sensible missions assigned by several different groups of people (the pope or a guild or nobles in your faction) instead of those moronic senate ones in Rome.

Yes, I'm a bit hyped up about this...
Especially since getting an email from Play.Com that my order has been shipped

 

Aww, why'd you go and say that? Now you have me suffering from Medieval-envy. Soon to be replaced with Medieval II-envy.

Maybe I'll check out the first one after playing RTW a little more . Just don't have the playing time I used to .

 

is medieval 2 an expansion or is it entirely different?

 

It's a sequel to the original Medieval, not an expansion pack.