Medieval II: Total War Game Info - Campaign

The developers for Medieval 2 introduced a new system for developing settlements, a new recruitment system, a new enhanced system for the treatment of religion, enhanced diplomacy, new trade options, improved missions, improved sabotage and espionage, improved AI, new tech tree buildings and more.

The campaign map will be markedly different from that seen in Rome. Aside from a new graphical look, it will be busier due to the addition of several new types of agent characters, including merchants, princesses and priests. The map won’t become as cluttered as the original Medieval map became, but the number of characters on the map will be raised in order to increase the options players have to interact with rival factions off the battlefield. Although initially the map appears to cover the same area as the map found in Rome, it will eventually offer more land to conquer. Late in the game the map opens up and offers the opportunity to discover and conquer the Americas.

The New World will be hidden from the players and the squares of the Atlantic Ocean will be impassible. Late in the game players will be able to develop the technology to cross the ocean, discover America, and battle with the Aztecs. The faction that is successfully able to conquer the New World will be able to reap rich rewards. The New World has many unique and lucrative resources, such as tobacco and chocolate, not to mention gold. Dominating the Americas will do wonders for your treasury, and converting all those pagans will impress the Pope. Being so far away, the faction that can defeat the Aztecs and establish a base there will have a huge advantage defending it against other factions. The economic advantages that come from having a monopoly there will give that faction a huge boost in dealing with the other European factions.

Medieval 2 introduces the option for players to develop their settlements either as a city or as castle. They both offer advantages, and it is a question of balancing the use of your settlements to suit such factors as map location, proximity to possible enemy factions and whether the player adopts a militaristic or economic approach to expansion.

Castles emphasize the military, cities the economic. Build lots of castles and the player's armies will become extremely potent. Meanwhile, cities result in a reliance on dubious militias or mercenaries to protect them. On the other hand, with cities, the player gains the money to buy off his opponents. Castles will require less management than cities but as the game develops, however, cities will become more important, and redeveloping castles will be costly; thus urbanization will need to be carefully managed. As a result, the level of strategy required for economic and territorial expansion will be increased.

One of the most significant additions to the tech tree in Medieval 2 is the addition of Guild halls. There will be various different types of guilds that give different bonuses to your settlements. Each city can have only one guild that will give local bonuses to that city. For example, the assassin’s guild will increase the skill of assassins. Some guilds will grant access to extra units as well. In addition, each faction can have one master guild for each guild type that gives greater bonuses, some of which may apply across all of a faction’s cities. Aditionally, it is possible to build a grandmaster guild that acts as a global HQ for that guild type. There can only be one grandmaster building for each guild in the world, so the faction that constructs it first will have an edge in that particular area.