Recently, I’ve picked up the demo for Medieval 2: Total War. The demo seems much the same as its predecessor. In the case of Medieval 2: Total War, it includes a battle tutorial and two historical battles, The Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Pavia.

The Batltle of Agincourt is pretty easy. Basically, all you have to do is make sure to hold your lines against the waves upon waves of men the French send against you. The only tricky part is that they send a few calvary behind your lines. You have to make sure to at least of some spearmen survive the initial waves in order to combat them, unless you want to use your general against them.

Pavia is a bit harder to say the least. I’m ashamed to say that I was not able to beat it on my first try. The second time around was ridiculously easy, even though I did lose my general. The events in both battles are scripted in such a way that the enemy is always attacking you in waves, so you don’t really have to think about an overall strategy that much.

The graphics for Medieval 2: Total War are pretty nice. I was able to play the game on high settings at 1920x1200 resolution. The light effects are pretty good for a strategy game (not Lost Coast good, of course, but still good.) I noticed the game speed was a bit off. Things seemed to happen too quickly for my tastes. According to Xfire, I’ve played about 4 battles over a course of an hour. I’m sure things like speed will be tweaked for the final release, though.

A few pictures.