Those games are really fun, while I haven't played MTW2 (I played MTW1 and it was just too complex for me, and I didn't like battling so I simulated all battles), it's a great feeling to change history and create a new reality. I did that with Europa Universalis III (similar to Total War, but in real time and with simulated battles).

I'm still very proud of bringing the very small Duchy of Bavaria to a dominant position, conquering most of Canada and subjugating and having as vassal the Ottoman Empire itself, with an empire that extended from Canada, the Caribbean, some parts of Germany, most of Italy, the Balkan, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Russia and Asia Minor all the way to India. Good times

Holy Shit your highness!

Medieval 1 really emphasized the power of naval superiority. If you completely neglected your navy, then you can literally be invaded by a far away nation such as Egypt in one turn. You also couldn't do naval trade without any navy (I thought it really sucked that trade was only through exporting to other countries, so the more ports you capture, the less ports you could trade with).

It also really made me understand the importance of having small borders, whearas in Rome: Total War and the rest onwards, you could get away a little bit, since it takes longer for armies to reach your settlements, and you don't have to abandon an entire province if you don't want to fight yet.

Medieval 1 was definetly awesome, but I have to be honest, that despite R:TW and Medieval 1 being totally different games (campaign wise), R:TW is superior.

I was really dissapointed that my Pikemen weren't as godly as the Phalanxes in R:TW =/ Rally over estimated them in my campaign against the Aztecs (I remember how the stupid AI in R:TW would just into my Phalanxes in bridge battles... 100 vs 1000, 1000 kills muwahhahaha).

I haven't played on Hard mode yet... and I'm really pissed that the difficulty modes don't change AI, but only give your enemies stat boosts. That just seems more unfair than anything...

I tried some recomendations in my old PC games thread, and I really can't play any other RTS than Total War. If Creative Assembly gets shut down, I'm literally done with RTSs. I LOVE Total War, and I HATE RTSs... as contrdictory that may sound (and it is XD lmao).

@ akvod, what do you think of Empire? While I enjoy the larger play area, and era, I just feel it is over simplified. You barely have any things to build. I remember in Rome Total War you will have billions of things to build in your settlements, but that is no longer true, especially with big and small cities being set. It was also amazingly buggy

I'm getting a new desktop this/next week... I really would love to be able to play Empire... although my first priority is milking the shit out of Medieval II like I did with Rome: Total War (although I feel I haven't played Barbarian Invasion enough...).

Also this was my first time conquering the whole world. Conquering the whole world in R:TW just got boring =/ I kept restarting campaigns over and over and after dominating all the major factions (Rome, Egypt, Carthage, possibly Britania or Germania, depending on how well they do, and if I chose/could have expanded into Europe... which I almost never do, since it's in Greece and the East where all the money is at... Anyone remember the scene in Rome season 2, where Mark Antony, Octavian, and the other guy divide up the lands? XD)

I loved playing as minor factions like Armenia, Numidia (oh god, I have such a great comeback story. Losing my Egyptian bordering settlements, losing a few settlements to Carthage, and having -10k money, I placed EVERYTHING on taking Carthage... which was no easy task.) I personally had to lead victory after victory, with my slowly dwindling force (which was tiny in the first place). I decided that since I have inferior numbers, I HAD to get to the bridge, and remembering having to fight one battle on an open field, outnumbered, with the enemies having ELEPHANTS. I lost a shit load of men after that, but it was a miracle I surivived (spamming Numidian javelinmen, the only unit I could pretty much recruit against elephants). Once I got to the bridge, two decisive victories, and I attacked an near empty Carthage, with reinforcements beginning to appear. I quick saved, auto resolved just in case the AI could handle a siege battle better than me, and it WON. I quickly exterminated the population, which brought up my treasury into the positives again, and retrained my entire army back into a full stack, and crushed Carthage. After that I was able to raise Numidian Legionaires, and begin my conquest onto Italy, crushing the Scipii, Brutii, and getting bored once I got to the Julli).

... oh back to the original question, how good of a computer do you need to be able to play Empire, on low settings, and NO LAG (Jesus, I can't wait to get the new computer, so I could actually fight the battles on Medieval II that require micro management).

Dunno man, I have a shitty computer, just got Medieval II, and it's running like hell XD

Games I played:

Medival 1, R:TW, and Medieval II.

Haven't played Shogun (don't really care anymore now... I remember playing Medieval 1 again for the kicks, and I realized how much of an improvement battles were in Rome). Want to play Empire...  but can't with my computer, and I still have so much to do with Medieval II (Trying out difficulty settings, different factions, SO MANY EXPANSIONS... wow they really did a lot).

Well you won't have a chance with Empire then. MII runs great on my computer, and ETW crashes all the time and is laggy as hell, I just can't play battles, it just does not work properly, but I always auto resolve anyway, I just can't be bothered to fight the battles myself

The reason why campaigns are so much fun in the beginning, and boring in the end are the battles IMO. The battles are so much more high stake in the beginning, and so much more fun as you can't just auto resolve. As soon as you're in the stage of just "Auto resolve, win, auto resolve win", you really get bored since fighing is a bore, but just managing is a bore, and there's no real big enemies. Medieval II kept me having fun until the end due to the Mongols, Timurids, and Aztecs. They really are end game bosses.

And there's so many enemies and factions.

I really auto-resolved a lot more in Empire than in Medieval II. The battles are just much slower, take a long time to load and gunpowder really seems to kill a lot slower than swords and bows.

Also you'll win an auto-resolve much faster whereas auto-resolving odds at 2:1 will always result in a defeat in Medieval II.

I also don't like the naval battles at all, which was the big new feature for the game. And regions have become much to big, where France would first consists of about 8 smaller regions it's now 1 big region.

@ non-gravity, oh yeah that does suck a bit and while I like looking at the ships, the few sea battles I did try just took forever, and I struggled to say the least. I know they want to keep the number of regions from being so great, France seriously needs more than 1 region