Another Victory
The outside of combate gameplay is spectacular as well. Even when you are not getting in to battles, there is plenty to do, trying to improve your standings among other nations (especially the pope and the papal states) and trying to improve your ranking among the other european nations. This is not easy either, as your allies tend to be fickle, waiting for the right moment, when you have placed just a bit too much trust in your alliance, and then back stabbing you at the opportune moment. In the mean time, you have had a hard enough time as it is managing your finances, now you have a war on your hands, and then the pope gets mad at you every time you try to retaliate against your aggressore. It is a nasty, dangerous game of politics that will engrose you utterly. The learning curve is a bit long, even for total war gamers. It is more like Rome than the first Mideaval, but has a lot of unique aspects, so take the time to glance over the manual and keep it handy as the game pans out.
I was a bit miffed to find that there are only five factions you can play when you start, and, unlike Rome, you have to beat an entire campaign to unlock the rest. More and more do not appear as you get further in the campaign. However, there is enough to do in one faction's campaign that this is not too much of a deterant. While gamespot did not like the lack of multiplayer, I am not much concerned about that. I dont know why any more than battles was even expected to be in multiplayer, it has never been before. While I agree that it would be very cool, I think it would be a bit complicated. Lets give these guys a little bit more time to develope a really good system for more comrehensive multiplayer, maybe by then we can play out the naval battles tactically, but again, this is only wishful thinking.
Finally the sound of the game was majestic. The songs fit the situations perfectly, and the characters and units do not have repetative sound files. The untis will scream yell and cry out in a million different ways in battle, and on the overall map, selected units will respond in a variety of different ways. The sound of the weapons clashing and men scuffling against one another are clean and crisp, and in combination with the astounding visuals, it all just emerses you in to the game completely.
One word of warning, there is nothing easy, or quick about this game. It can get a little tedious at times, and if you are impatient at all, or get frustrated by loosing, then you might have a few problems with this game. Other than that, have at it!