An excellent strategy game which will give you many hours of fun as you lead your nation to victory both on and off the battlefield. The graphics and sound are great and this Gold Edition comes with the expansion, which offers several scenarios for you to test yourself against.

Medieval total war will not upset any total war fan. It is one of the best total war games ever to come out. 10/10.

Excelent game! Replayable as many times as you want, you won't get bored. I've learned many historical things with this game. Must play!

Best 10 bucks you'll ever spend on a game. The 5 campaigns are all solid fun on their own, but wait until you check out the amazing mod community, and lose yourself in the world of J.R.R. Tolkein, brought to the battlefield in Third Age: Total War. Just one of the many mods available for the M2TW/Kingdoms game. This game still occupies way too much of my time, click the buy button.

The core gameplay for MTW2 is quite fun--probably the best I've experienced in the Total War series. Controlling the tactical formation of troops on the field scratches a much different itch than grand strategy games like the EU series, and I haven't found any real equal. The additional campaigns in 'Kingdoms' were somewhat hit and miss; my main problem with them is that their increased focus results in very cluttered maps and somewhat unbalanced scenarios. They add some interesting elements, but just aren't as fun to play through as the main campaign. At $9.99, though, it's still well worth the price.

From MTW to MWT2, the graphics are a huge step forward, introducing 3d maps, and units with differently clad men. But think of it more as putting an extra coat of shiny polish on your car. The effects of firing flaming arrows and the pageantry of heraldic colors on the knights and other troops are beautiful to watch.

The AI is much better on the tactical/battle level. It can be aggressive, harassing you with its archers, while destroying yours if the opportunity arrises. However, when outnumbered, it often stops doing anything, such that you can shower his troops with arrows until they break. On the strategic/world map level, the AI is severely limited. It will often attack out of the blue for no reason, even if you have an alliance/trade rights/military rights of passage. It will also never consider to change a city to a castle or vice-versa.

Overall, it's a nice continuous improvement, following MTW and RTW. Hours of fun and replayability awaits with nice graphics. Just don’t be surprised that the AI is struggling.

The total war series has always been one of my all time favorite series. Creative Assembly does it again with this, the second installment of Medieval. This is a must have for anyone that loves the series or just wishes to be challenged

A Great game, as most in the series.

The tactical aspects of the realtime combat have been improved with more formations for units and the strategic aspects are greatly deepened by the separation of military and civil structures, altough I would love to be able to have them in the same provinces and to be able to raise castles on my own to protect strangepoints stronger than with forts. I also miss a deeper level of diplomacy, as in say the Europa Universalis series, though this probably would mean much less action and thus deviate from the Total War formula.

The games greatest strength lies within the modding community, wich gives the game much needed diversity.

If your a fan of the Total War series then you know what your in for. Strategic level play that turns in RTS when your armies meet. This collection includes all the MTW DLC in on nice package and is a steal for under $10.

PS....When you go to install the package don't worry about not being able to pick a installation location at first because your get the option after entering the serial number.

A great game that although didn't quite give me as much pleasure as the original was still amazing! The last Total War that I actually still play from time to time. It isn't of course as intricate as say EU3 or Crusader Kings, but it gives you the opportunity to play out the battles which is always fun. Mods are great for this game if you can still find them (Try Stainless Steel as it is easily the best!). I would recommend this game to any strategy fan!

I'd had the original game (minus the expansion) for quite some time, and enjoyed it. The tactical battles, IMO, are what truly make this game shine. When I saw the Gold edition for sale here on gamersgate, I snatched it up so I could finally have the expansion too.

While it has the same quirks as the base game (lack of realistic diplomacy and often-silly tactical AI), it comes with 4 new campaigns, each with their own map, factions, units, and focus. There are many days worth of playable content here, and I highly recommend it (especially on sale!)

A good buy when its at a reduced price i really wanted to like this one but it just doesnt grab me. Mainly for me its the battles I dont like they can drag out to be very long which is ok when your into that much detail. I tend to prefer the grand strategy more than the tacticle battles.

Medieval 2 Total War is a decent game, but it loses steam for me quickly because the AI (both in the battles and on the campaign map) simply does not cut it.

Battles are fun to look at, but it is too easy to outmaneuver your artificial enemy, inflicting maximal casualties while incurring minimal losses to your own army. Often times enemy units will wait patiently as your units bombard them with arrows and siege weaponry, dwindling their numbers as they sit idly by. As a result, I often resorted to using the auto-resolve battle feature in order to arrive at a fair result.

However, this highlights the fact that without the battles, the campaign is rather uninteresting. A lot of the world is controlled by "rebels" at game start, where many nations have been neglected in favor of a generic, hostile group. The diplomatic AI is weak and unpredictable, and there really just isn't that much to do, strategically.

There are some decent mods out there that address some of these issues, but they can only do so much. Playing this game just made me want to uninstall and play EU3 instead.

Bad things first: The Ai is a bit quirky especially in siege situations, The diplomacy is a bit pointless since no matter hwat you do all your neighbours will hate your guts after a couple of turns

Apart from that this game is filled with the usual Total War goodness: A turn based strategic map with city management, and a Real time tactical map for battles.

What sets this game apart from other titles in the series is the huge amount of content included in this package: you can conquer medieval Europe as Venice, pummel the english as Scotland, Crush the poles as Teutonic Knights, fight in the crusades and even play as aztects.

The choiche of factions and Campaign context allow to play a lot of variations of history, and that was always the most fun part in Total War at least for me.

When I discovered this game years ago I fell from my chair. The battles were absolutely gorgeous and their scale was immense. Also, there were many many factions to chose from, with all their unique units. To wrap it up, the game also had a political strategy layer, in the campaign map, that spans Europe and the Middle East. The Kingdoms expansion added more factions and more campaigns, so it's always an improvement. I gave 4 stars because the AI in the campaign map is... very bad. This part is severly missing, but if you expect Total War then you will be happy. To compensate, there are very good mods for the game, that should be tried.

Medieval 2 Total War is a good game, with some minor issues. The first problem i have is that it don't give you a large variation of nations to play as from the start. The second is that later in the game, it seems like you never will play the battles (Atleast i didn't) and just auto resolve as many of them as possible, and i find that really sad as the game got a good tactical side to and some large and well looking maps to fight on. Thirdly, the AI seems to be outdated quite a bit (The game is pretty old. Most of the time i could just fire arrows into them and they would never charge at me. It made taking forts really easy. The game is good though, and very close to perfection but is being held down by a small amount of bugs and outdated AI.

It is a good game, although it has a lot of bugs. But the best of this game are the modifications made by fans.

One of the best games of strategy, turn-based game and in real time, in the beginning is a little tricky to understand, but soon gets used and is extremely addictive, the number of units on screen is amazing, and the multiplayer is great tbm is supporting various players.

Medieval total war 2 is one of the series best made games. I highly recommend purchasing this game if you like strategy games, history, tactics, economic management, or empire building this is a fantastic game. The price is also extremely attractive for such a great game. This is definatly an art pieace. Dont miss such a great game it is a revolutionary in the gaming industry.

One of the best games I ever played.

I am very happy, that I purchased this game and if you have HD, 3D graphic card, this game will be a trophy for your pc.

Medieval: Total War Gold Edition is the compilation of the critically-acclaimed Medieval: Total War and its official expansion pack - Total War Kingdoms. Set in the turbulent Middle Ages, Medieval puts you in command of your own empire as you crush neighboring kingdoms and unify all of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Medieval: Total War Kingdoms features four entire campaigns centered on expanded maps of the British Isles, Teutonic Northern Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.

IF you like medieval setting and strategy game that lets you manage the entire battlefield, This is the game for you. This is what civilization would look like if it was more in depth. When you pull of a strategy, it is just satisfying. I hope they release a Medieval 3 with Shogun 2 engine.

Best Total War game in the series.

You can play in the medieval Europe, hire agents, conquer your enemies or just bribe them. Of corse the gold edition comes with a package of awsome scenarios. All in all you can play in the medieval Europe (vanilla), Middle east, Baltic, Americas or British Isles (Kingdoms). My personal favourite is the British scenairo where you can teach the English dogs as Wales how to war or create the North Sea Emprire as Norway.

To sum up this game really worth its price.

Despite the known AI faults, Medieval 2 Total War is a great game in my opinion due to the depth and uniqueness of the varying factions. In addition, great mods such as DarthMod makes the game shine so much more than the later 3 in the series to me. The game might be a bit old compared to Empire or Shogun, but its responsive UI (compared to the Empire or Shogun demo where my units ignore orders) combined with AI improvements in DarthMod make this one of the best in the Total War series.

if you have played Rome:Total War and his expansion, Barbarian Invasion and you like the game, you will love Medieval 2, it have everything for everyone, massive battles involving thousand of men, cool army and economy management and a easy to learn interface, if you feel audacious, you can try the great mods develop for the game, you can find them in the Total War forum.

i higly recommend this game, it really worth its price, if you are lucky and quick you can have it for 2.849 blue coins, these days GG offer it with a 92% discount, the offer will last for 6 days, a very nice price for a great and awesome game

If your a fan of the era, and love stratergy this is a must have! Amazing battles a detailed and complicated campaign this should leave you wasting 100+ hours in no time. If you somehow manage to chew threw all of that the mods will add even more ranging from lord of the rings to the middle east. Perhaps the best stratergy of all time.

Comes in a great package and in my opinion best Total War game than any before or after it. Download the third age mod if you like lord of the rings, adds great models and map for a mod. Also the individual scenarios in the kingdom section are great, especially the teutonic campaign and crusader one!

if you buy this game anywhere else youll be robbed, i bought this game when it came out and the DLC for it was £19.50 still today, so i thought why not buy every DLC for even cheaper!

The game itself is a typical total war game, the best of its type! If you like strategy games then you MUST buy this.

I like Medieval 2 Total war. It's a game with so much potential. It delivers in some areas and and do not in others. For example the battles is astounding, but the diplomacy AI...well it sucks. It sucks a a lot. You will not get a 100% realistic Medieval game. But a decent realistic Medieval game with some bad ass battles.

If you've enjoyed the 1st Medieval Total War, this sequel is a great addition to the series. Battles are still very satisfying and with an expanded campaign map. The inclusion of merchants help diversify economic options as well. What's for, you'll be getting the Kingdoms expansion, which add tons of value to an otherwise lengthy game.

Another amazing Total War game that is old, but brought a lot of new content to the genre and series at the time of its release. A must-buy for those who love the time period, who enjoy the series, or who enjoy the genre. I love this game, and it never fails to keep me coming back.

Although it may not be the newest of the total war series it is still one of the best. Although the A.I may not be the best they do offer a good range of difficultly to allow most people to have a challenge. With the DLC there are lodes of different factions with lots off troops to play. So although not the best of the Total war games it is deferentially a very good one.

This is my favorite Total War game so far (I have not purchased Shogun 2) and have played it over and over again. I have an older laptop, but just purchased a new Acer laptop with a dedicated graphic card. I would highly recommended it.

The game is good, base on a war game. The diplomatic is a good way to progress, but the religion is a bit needless.

To make this game a 5 stars, It would be great to add some feature from the series Crusaders Kings, like the family, marriage...

but its a good game ENJOY

Probably one of the best Total War games to date (with the exception of maybe Shogun 2 which I haven't played yet). I love this time period and the combat system. Empire Total War was a good game but just doesn't have the same feel in combat. I owned the original M2TW and bought the Gold edition here at GamersGate on sale to try the expansions. I have been playing it in the evenings after work and messing around with the expansion campaigns. It’s worth the money just for the original game, but the expansions give you even more lands and content to conquer.

The original campaign plus 4 extra campaigns from the expansion easily suck you into hundreds of hours of plotting, warring, building and making history ! If you still hunger for more, check out the awesome TotalWar community site where you can get mods that turn it into Warhammer Fantasy/ Middle Earth setting or simply build/expand upon the original concepts like Stainless Steel/Sicilian Vespers. I can recommend without hesitation that this is the game that any self-respected dude with an interest in medieval warfare has to have on his shelf !

If you've played any of the later Total War games, like Empire, Napoleon, or Shogun 2, Medieval 2 is still worth taking a look at. Especially if you liked The Tudors!

Amazing game, very complete, fun campaign where you can control the world and amazing tactical battles with thousands of units on screen! And it's only $4 with the expansion included right now, so buy it!

If you enjoy RTS games, and enjoy anything medieval then this is the game for you. Many factions to choose from. Each faction is unique and has different strengths and weaknesses. Battles are fun to watch. It takes a little time to get used to all the options with the diplomacy, and managing your armies and territories, but it is worth it. A fun play.

An excellent strategy game of its time. This game build on its predecessor and smashed it into little bits. You know a great game when you see it five or ten years later, install it on your computer and still play it just like you did years ago.

I think this game is one of the very best strategy games you can pick up because of it's very easy to use mechanics and it's base elements though diplomacy is frustrating at times and the mongols{horse archers} and the timurieds{elephant artillery} is hard to beat at times it still is a great game

The best in the series so far despite three more games released since then. The ultimate modability makes it highly acclaimed strategy game with hundreds of superb mods out there and many yet in development. The number not reached by any of its successors by far. I recommned Medieval II Total War for anyone interested in highly immersive combination of turn-based campaign map / real-time battles especially with the wide variety of still maintained mods such as Stainless Steel or Third Age and many yet to come.

After Rome: Total War came Medieval 2, which was greatly improved by graphics, sound and major in-game tweaks. Apart from being different times, the M2 comes with a lot of different types of units, the campaign map is much more bigger and the addition of religion. You make the choices as you pick your faction - will you take part in the famous crusades or maybe even be the target of them? The game is easy to learn, thus you need to have some concepts of strategy and tactics to win battles and the grand campaign of course. Not to mention, there are a lot of mods, which makes the game even more replayable, changing units, even taking the game to Middle-Earth! Also there is the multiplayer mode, where you can battle with friends. Personal favourite, best strategy game in the Total War franchise. 10/10.

Worth every cent I paid for it. This game has SO much replayability.

And then there are the expansions. They are more limited in scope and not so "grand" as the grand campaign but this gives them a flavor of their own. Custom units and music make these as great as the original

Awesome graphics, music and gameplay. 5/5

I just bought the game, despite already having the original boxed game. The game is that good, that i wanted to make sure i always have it in my collection, long after the physical discs start being unreadable (which due to extensive use, they already are).

One simply can not say enough about this game. In my humble opinion, Medieval represent the pinnacle of the Total War series, not taking into consideration Shogun 2, which i have not played yet. The graphics are stunning, the campaigns massive and pleasing, while the mechanism represents years of evolution since the original Shogun title, still unmarred by the changes brought on by the Empire and Napoleon titles.

Aside from Civilization, this is the only game i intentionally chose to buy twice, just to have an extra copy for myself. Don't hesitate, it is money well spent!

An excellent, very addictive game. Plus it has some educational value as well! Compares well with Rome Total War, as I think the gameplay enhancements (for example, limits on the number of units you can reinforce at a time depending on the size of your castle/town etc) are a good edition, while the impact of religion has been done in an effective manner, unlike barbarian invasion. The same formula with morale etc is great fun.

Not a big fan of the expansions, but probably due to the insane amount of time I spent on the main game already... Also, Rome total war seemed to be "cleaner" in terms of its interface. Can't put my finger on it. Once your empire gets too big the amount of management is slightly excessive as well...

this game is, in my opinion the best of CA's total war franchise to date. with the gold pack, you will have hundreds of hours of content to get addicted to, and once that is up, the amazing modding community at twcenter.net ads thousands of hours worth of full conversion mods for your enjoyment. a must have, i happily rate it 5/5

The best of the series so far (although I haven't played Shogun 2). The medieval era lends itself very well to tactical combat, which is what this game is all about. The graphics hold up well, and watching a band of knights charge into some poor peasants is exceedingly entertaining, as is watching your valiant pikemen standing against some enemy knights.

The strategic map can be a bit fiddly, but it's all worth it.

The best total war game out there, the vanilla version leaves much to be desired gameplay and historywise but the superb mods fix all that and their number, variety and outstanding quality means that you have essentially 20 games for the price of one.

They have even managed to create new settlements and you will soon be able to play in realistic depictions of anything from Constantinople to Minas Tirith.

This is probably the best game you can buy for this price in gamersgate

Still after 5 years of its release M2TW is the one game I keep returning to. Two of the reasons for this are:

- Every campaign is different. Every faction / kingdom has its own strategic advantages and disadvantages; location, size and the power of neighboring factions. Also, each of the over dozen playable factions have their own unique units e.g. English have excellent Longbowmen whereas German heavy cavalry can wreck serious havoc to enemy infantry. This makes the tactical game play ever changing and interesting.

- The hard work of the modders has kept this game changing and developing year after year. I have been a huge fan of the Stainless Steel modification that has brought something new and enhanced many aspects of the game giving it freshness by each release.

If you enjoyed the newly released Shogun 2 Total War, I am certain that you will enjoy the older sister, Medieval 2 Total War as well. For 10€ it is a must buy for every serious armchair king.

Great game I love it its so entertaining and its never the same twice u can be all different fractions of countries and have countless campaigns

There has been so many compliments, that i will refrain from being redundant. The game is excellent, superb, an absolute must-have.

What I must say is this. 'Empire total' war and 'napoleon total war', though more complex, fail to be better than the shogun/rome/medieval games. It's hard to explain why. Personally I did not like having to connect to steam to play, or the unecessarily heavy graphics without clever strategic improvements, and other 'improvements'. Recent games tend to be worst than their predecessors because of such issues.

Medieval manages to be great without any of those flaws, and quite probably is the best installment in the 'total war' series so far.

This is one of my favorite games of all time.

The entire total war series has been great, but this is one of my favorites. Great action, lots of mods, and an engaging campaign that is always there waiting for you when you need more.

If you've played total war, but not this, it's worth checking out. If you've never played total war, I suggest starting here. For the price, it's a worthy introduction.

Medieval Total War 2 is an episode of the long-running and fortunate total war series of games.

This particular game has a lot in common with its relatives, especially Rome Total War for the game mechanics, but the medieval setting is probably much more intriguing than a roman-times world with mostly the same units everywhere.

In MTW2 instead, the kind of military units vary a lot depending by the geographical area, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Middle East etc.

The Gold version has even more content giving you 4 other campaigns and all of them long as the original one.

The bonus campaigns, with different maps, more civilizations, more units are Americas, Teutonic Campaign, British campaign and the Crusades

I prefer this over Empire: total war.

No other medieval strategy game have ever come close to beating this.

I hope their next Total war game will go back to the medieval days as well.

This game is a classic, a must-have for all the strategy gamers. With its add-ons this package grants umpteen hours of fun. AND: There a several free mods like "stainless steel" or "broken crescent" available for download, who make the gold edition of Medieval 2 worth every cent.

This bundle is a steal for the current $7 sale price, and is even worth the full price of $20. Containing Medieval 2 Total War and all of it's expansion packs, this is the definitive Medieval 2 pack. The gameplay is the classic Total War game play you know and love; turn based strategy on the playing field and real time strategy in the battlefield. You can spend hours and hours on this game.

Medieval 2 is a great tactical combat game but the strategic aspects, while compelling and improved from the previous versions of the franchise, leave bits to be desired.

The game is at its best when your largest armies struggle valiantly against overwhelming enemy force. Huddling behind your shattered walls until the last moment before the enemy cavalry bursts through the remnants of your gate, standing firm against the angry sea of enemy troops surging against your position or smashing the enemy centre with your reserves at a crucial junction to watch their entire line falter – these moments will reward your careful preparation with joy and exhilaration. The graphics are satisfying and capture the chaos and gore of the battlefield when you zoom in to admire your men in action, and give you good feedback when you do well or mess up terribly. Unfortunately, a lot of the time you'll be worrying about less exciting things.

The main activities occupying your time will be smaller, less satisfying battles and managing your castles, cities, and special units, all of which are not bad in and of themselves and are in fact significant and interesting aspects of the early to middle game, but become tedious as your empire expands and detract from the larger task of preparing for and winning decisive battles and sieges. Also in the “could be better” column is the opposing AI, which is aggressive but disorganized strategically, sending out large and numerous armies but often not sticking to a particular objective... which isn't always bad as sometimes you'll wonder how they're financing all this warfare. Tactically, the AI tends to be passive when outnumbered or on the defensive and does not identify and counter threats too well, which is why only the largest battles allow for epic drama and heroism, but it will attack you coherently most of the time if it decides to do so.

On the balance of things, Medieval 2 is a good game, and the things that frustrate me about it will only really become a significant issue for players on their second, third and fourth campaigns. If you enjoy the combat mechanics then the moderate discomfort of micromanaging the home front will not prevent you from enjoying all of it time and again.

Download Stainless Steel mod and this game will be something much different and better. 9€ for this game is nothing.

A must have bundle! It combines the award-winning Medieval II alongside its expansion, Kingdoms. Set in the Middle-Ages this game lets you command a kingdom as you struggle to rise and forge a powerful empire.

Graphics: 7/10. A bit dated but amazingly good even now... will be quite fitting for the setting. Also, rest assured that you won't need any powerhouse system to play it.

Sound: Serviceable, though the Music DOES deserve appraisal, as its soundtrack is nothing short of superb!

Gameplay: Epic. Needn't say more.

Overall: 5/5

Overall a great game, endless hours of play. Various countries to play gives you the chance to use different strategies with the Pope, other nations, and the Holy Land. Great amount of units and excellent graphics.

Few downsides such as awkward diplomacy (sometimes) and predictable backstabbing by some nations. Battles can sometimes be won easily with simply cavalry charges.

I had this complaint with Rome Total War (which was painfully bloated compared to medieval) and it has carried over to Medieval 2 to a degree. The turn based portion of this game is overly complex and requires minor (in the beginning) to extreme micromanagement as your empire progresses. While some may say its all fun and dandy this is a hybrid game i beg to differ. Total War has really always been about the rts aspect, simply put it'd be a crappy civilization game with out it. Some problems with the current turn based portion is population happiness. Its relatively easy to maintain early on, however as you expand it becomes damn near impossible to keep everyone happy. Ignoring my complaints about the turn based part we get to the rts combat, the heart of the series. I'm happy to say its great. Units in this game are very responsive, charge without many glitches, and units are very balanced overall between factions. Now when units get all mashed together they do have some issues but overall its a huge improvement over Rome. Its great to see the engine mature and hopefully the upcoming Total War will refine it more. The chaos in a battle are felt when thousands of men charged into the opposing formations, and fighting one another, steel against steel with their foes, until one of them was forced into submission, and the death blow delivered upon them. The sound is so great ever !

Medieval 2 Total War GE is definitely a must have for strategy gamers, and definitely worth every cent!

This game had a much improved battlefield than Rome Total War but lacked the long lasting appeal as it's predecessor. This game is definitely a must-buy if you're interested in this period of history. There is a lot of content to keep you entertained and the expansions will provide additional hours of fun to the original game.

Much has bin said about the Total War series, and I will just add my personal thoughts about this much appreciated game. I can only admit its uniqueness, mixing together strategy and tactic in an interesting historical simulation. But this has a price. The strategy section of the game is streamlined and historically over-simplified. Don't expect to play a very historical sim. And battles... Another game, XIII Century: Death or Glory, will deliver to you a much stronger experience of such medieval battles. Why? Simple: the terrain in M2TW isn't realistic enough. Few hills, trees, rivers; too many battles in open terrain. Another big complaint: the AI. It's not smart enough in the tactical battles, especially during sieges, a very frequent circumstance in M2TW. Simply put: if you are defending in a siege, you can repel with very few losses a much stronger enemy. In the open troops perform relatively well: but in the tight streets of villages and towns you will see them unrealistically blocked. You will have 10 men in the front fighting, and other 190 watching the show. XIII Century battles work a lot better, but sadly it misses the strategic part.

To conclude: a great game, and worth the price. But 4 stars are just right for me.

There's little not to like in the Gold Edition of Medieval 2 Total War. There are huge battles pitting the best troops kingdoms were ale to field during the Middle Age, there are towns and castles to develop in a myriad of ways, there are treaties to be signed and spies to be employed to take out high value enemy targets. The game uses the Rome engine and looks very good even so long after the initial release. The Kingdoms expansion and patches also made the Artificial Intelligence better than before and there are some truly excellent mods out there that make the game even more historical. For those who are interested in turn based grand strategy mixed with real time tactical battles Medieval 2 Total War is a must.

Medieval 2 is basically a big, fat, shiny (not so shiny really - all the battlefields are covered in a rather odd gloomy atmosphere) megamod of Rome Total War. Some minor improvement, some inexplicable backwards steps (like an almost legendary sloppy movement of the troops on the tactical real-time battles), but the game is nearly the same, plus greatly improved graphics (and smoother too, on "modern" mid-to-high end PCs). So, is the game any good? Is good, bordering on very good if you can overlook the historical sillities, the design oversimplifications and the dumb AI. The real deal are indeed the mods, which are plentiful, free and offer something to everyone: more gameplay depth, graphics improvements, or whole new settings (and sometimes all the 3 together, which is good).

Gamersgate version works with popular mods. I tried installing Stainless Steel 6.1 and Third Age (LOTR) and both seem to run fine.

For those that are not aware, half the draw of Total War games are the mods that are freely downloadable. Sure Medieval 2 has the main campaign, and Kingdoms has 4 huge separate full-scale campaigns, but there is just so much more mod content out there, and for fans of other themes, such as say Lord of the Rings fans, it's great to be able to play a LOTR campaign with treants, orcs, and ring-wraiths.

This is probably the finest Total War game that has so far been released. The historical accuracy is, as usual, leaning on the cinematic side of realism but that is forgivable in light of the overall experience of hacking and slashing your way across Europe. Also, this is the only Total War game with a decent expansion list! The Americas is particularly fun.

Absolutely terrific game. Sublime graphics and good performance, terrific and immersion macro campaign coupled with unmatched real-time tactical battles. Gold Edition is a must-have because Kingdoms gives you not only four new campaigns (previous reviewer didn't mention Americas campaign) but also access to many mods that require it in addition to the original--including developer-produced Retrofit, which is like a final patch for the original game incorporating Kingdoms features into the original game. Throw in the incredible Third Age: Total War Lord of the Rings Mod (basically a complete game in and of itself, new intro and everything) and you've got a semester's worth of classes to miss because you played until 4 AM ;)

M2TW Gold edition is truly a must. Of course its view of european medieval history is a bit farcesque for those who have even a moderate knowledge of what the Middle Ages really meant - if you want the real thing, check Crusaders Kings, Deus Vult.

However, for the pleasure of deploying the banners, timing the knight charges or watching the bowyers send their arrows to cruelly break the aforementioned impetus, it is still an unparalleled achievement.

The campaigns of the addon (Britannia, Crusades, teutonic) are pretty tough. Plus if that is not enough, you may download a bunch of great mods (like Deus lo Vult from Total War Center) that will perfectly fit on this installment.