Civ4 is a very good game.... it has a very interesting unit promotion system and hero/general units.

The problem with the unit promotion system i found is that it is kind of 'moot' unless you are willing to do quite a bit of reloading. Because when i left it just to chance, i could never get any units past the halfway mark up the experience ladder (unless i used wonders and buildings that boost experience for green units). but you know, reloading is easy in civ4, not a problem.

I love total war 2.... way more than civ4 or civ anything, its brilliant!

Total war 2 plus galactic civilizations 3 are the two main games i am playing this year

Hi wdean,

The base control in Total War has significant similarities to Civ. Cities can build military units, improvements to increase food supply, improvements to increase financial production, bonuses to happiness, bonuuses to movement. Military units are far more significant for city happiness than in Civ. Cities are fixed in place and the game aims are largely conquest as in Risk. Battles are table top wargaming come to life rather than counter vs counter as in Civ so these battles take up a much higher proportion of game time. There's diplomacy and a variety of agents.

S.x.

Not similar at all actually! lol

Well i have played total war 2 extensively and the only two elements that matter are money and happiness.

The faster you can improve happiness, the faster you can grow your city and the faster you can grow your city, the sooner you can reach higher technology levels and more powerful improvements.

Where it becomes more interesting is with your 'nobles'.... kind of like hero units. They can gain experience in combat and you can make them into a very powerful component to speeding up city growth

but your noble cannot gain experience fighting rebel armies, you want to avoid fighting rebel armies with your noble or he will be demoted, even if it is a heroic victory, he will be demoted (unless he is specializing in dread). You have a rebel army roaming your kingdom, you destroy it, and you are punished for doing so, its pretty weird/crazy

So i still use nobles to fight rebel armies but only as supporting armies, that solves that problem.

Although not stated explicitly I think this is Rome Total War 2. There is Medieval Total War 2 (good), Shogun Total War 2 (good) and Rome Total War 2 (by reputation - not good). Main complaints about Rome TW 2 - too much of game held behind DLC walls, unpopular rules changes (all armies need a general), and generally that Creative Arts got too distracted trying to gouge on the DLC to make a great game

. The earliest Total War games (Shogun and Medieval) were played on countries like boardgames where only one player could occupy each territory and any armies in the same territory went to war. The graphics are primitive in Shogun Total War too.

Rome Total War was a great leap forward. Modern style graphics, real world maps where whoever controlled the city controlled the territory but armies could maraud round without fighting the city (cf: Hannibal). Whilst not perfect it's a very well designed game. Its map takes you from fighting chariots and head hunters in France and Britain to Elephants in North Africa. Medieval Total War 2 and Shogun Total War 2 reworked the earliest titles in the series with far better graphics and greater strategic depth. Empire Total War (1600 - 1700) is an oddity. Graphically it's poor compared to RTW and the sequels (at medium distances cavalry glide rather than gallop) and the strategy is completely different. In earlier time periods peppering with archers, an infantry charge to the front to pin and then a cavalry charge to the rear to break were the keys to victory. It takes some time to adapt to Empire where you have a static line and try to lure your opponent into your kill zone. Cavalry is far less effective, generals far more valuable for morale than as fighting units, and after the development of grapeshot protecting your artillery is essential.

The earlier games are IMHO (Rome TW, Medieval TW 2, Shogun TW 2, and Empire TW) the best and in a sale (they're definitely on Steam) the cheapest.

S.x.

Hmmmm too many morons using total war 2 in their games name, its confusing as hell.

Anyway, i have played 'medieval' total war 2 extensively.

I prefer to field mostly cavalry and cavalry archer armies. I only use infantry when i need to take cities, if i don't have artillery that is, and even then its not essential if i can be bothered waiting them out.

Okay first off im not going to disagree just providing a logical basis for some of the arguments.

1. City-Based Happiness :
This one actually make sense in a real world. There are many cases in history were provinces revolted because all the managements and the good stuff are focused on the Capital City. Even in modern days, border/frontier cities are usually hot beds for malcontented and dissatisfied rebels and insurgents (example: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Mexico) because of the lack of governmental supervision, public infrastructure, law enforcement body, cultural presence, economic output, recreational facilities, etc.

City-based happiness (in contrast to civilization based happiness) will also open up a much more detailed game-play mechanics of clandestine strategy off arming up and supporting discontended provinces to launch a revolt. Players would actually gauge and assess which provinces are discontented enough for a successful infiltration operation.

Turning happiness from city-based to civilization-based remove the simulation aspect of looking after your people in your frontier cities and outpost as that adds some sort off strategic challenge in terms of allocating and dividing your limited resources amongst your cities.

2. Unit Stacking :
Unit stacking do make sense as far as civilization simulation is concern because of the game scale. Civ games uses strategic scale, not operational, regiment, or battalion scale.

Many war games (Operational Art of War for example) could go away with limited unit per stacks because they are operating a unit as a military group (Artillery Battalion, Engineering Regiment, HQ Platoon) each of which could contain various types of military pieces. An arttillery Battalion could have armor vehicles, an Engineering Regiment could contain a rifle infantry squad.

In Civ games units are categorize via technology, a tank is a tank, a soldier is a soldier, an artillery is an artillery. Having them operates on a different tiles doesnt make sense on a strategic scale because each tiles should have at least the size of a one full city.

Logically thats like spreading your specialize pieces very thinly (your artillery guns are 5 miles aways from your tank which are 5 miles away from your soldiers - in reality most of them are actuall working closely together) on the battle ground. That doesnt make any military sense at least in terms of strategic scale.

Civ games failure is that instead of simulating a proper military unit (Armor battalion, infantry regiment, artillery brigade, etc) which is grouped by size and military function, they group them in terms of technology. And thus it makes for a very poor reflection of an actual combat pieces.