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Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms

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8.6 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 22 critic reviews
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Based on 35 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Creative Assembly

Genre(s): Real-Time Strategy

Players: 8

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: August 28, 2007

Summary

Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms is the official expansion to Medieval II: Total War, presenting players with all-new territories to explore, troops to command, and enemies to conquer. Kingdoms features four new entire campaigns centered on expanded maps of the British Isles, Teutonic Northern Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. In Medieval II, players were only given a glimpse of South America, but in Kingdoms, vast tracts of land in both North and South America have been opened up for players to conquer. All-new factions from the New World are also now fully playable, including the Aztecs, Apaches, and Mayans. Along with the new maps in the Britannia, Teutonic, Crusades, and New World Campaigns, there are 13 new factions to play, over 110 units to control, and 50 building types, adding up to 80 hours of new gameplay. Kingdoms also offers new multiplayer maps and hotseat multiplayer, a first for the Total War series, allowing players to play one-versus-one campaign games on the same computer. [Sega]

Also On Metacritic

GAMES: Medieval II: Total War Medieval: Total War Medieval: Total War - Viking Invasion

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

GameShark

Kingdoms breathes fresh life into the Total War franchise, just when it needs it most.

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PC Gamer

But Sega's expansion for Medieval II does add around 80 hours of gameplay to the franchise--all for the price of a regular($29.99)expansion pack. [Dec 2007, p.69]

PC Gamer UK

There's almost no reason not to mount your horse and charge through the doors of PC World, beheading the security guard with a Zweihander and screaming blood-oaths as you enter your pin number, to get hold of a copy of Kingdoms. Only the weak will not be buying this expansion pack, and frankly, the weak are there to be trampled. [Sept 2007, p.82]

PC Zone UK

Whilte it may not be totally perfect, the sheer depth and replayability of Kingdoms raises it high above any RTS expansion I've ever played. [Oct 2007, p.68]

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Jolt Online Gaming UK

A general clean up of what was already a consummate package, with the addition of some incredibly absorbing new campaigns.

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Game Informer

The Kingdoms expansion adds an unprecedented amount of new content to an already deep turn-based strategy game.

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AceGamez

The variety of the campaigns and the different sides involved is enough to keep you going for some time. While more of a completion of the ideal of Medieval II rather than a whole new game, Kingdoms is the best value expansion pack of any game I've played in recent times, with four new campaigns to battle through.

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games(TM)

The series is no longer revolutionising the strategy genre, it is raising the bar with every effort – which, if the first game was a masterpiece such as Shogun: Total War, is not a feat to be scoffed at. [Nov 2007, p.112]

PC Format

Rarely have I seen such a jam-packed expansion, or one with such variety. [Nov 2007, p.54]

Games Master UK

As if it wasn't Total enough, Total War gets even more Total. [Nov 2007, p.85]

Pelit (Finland)

A 4-in-1 add-on that delivers a staggering amount of new units, characters, events and maps. Gameplay is unchanged, though. [Sept 2007]

Worth Playing

A great expansion pack, and it's the standard to which all other expansions should hold themselves.

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ActionTrip

Instead of messing with the familiar basic gameplay mechanics, Creative Assembly decided to deliver as much fresh content as possible, which means you'll be busy with the game for quite some time. Each campaign provides a unique experience and we fully recommend the game to fans of the series.

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IGN

True, there are some surprises in the way the new campaigns play out but, dog warriors and Greek fire aside, Medieval 2 fans will be in very familiar territory here.

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GameZone

The same great gameplay as the original... times 4!

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1UP

Major events -- such as the arrival of a Crusading noble to join in your jolly pagan fox hunt, or the forming of a new faction -- keep you on your toes and inject personality, encouraging you to almost "role-play" the tyrannical zealots or freedom-fighting underdogs you're controlling.

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GameTap

These campaigns are so deep and focused that they make up for the fact that they do almost nothing to correct the original game’s sense of sprawl, or lack of a sense of direction whenever someone puts their stirrups on.

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GameSpot

This great new expansion offers a significant amount of new content for veteran Medieval II players.

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Eurogamer

The problem with all these things which have been coded to create historical semi-realism is that it creates a limit of the tech-tree they can climb.

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GameSpy

The Creative Assembly team knows what Total War fans want, and the huge amount of new content found in Kingdoms is it.

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NZGamer

So there's a sense of overkill. Unless of course you're a Total War obsessive -- in which case, the Kingdoms expansion is more or less chocolate-covered awesomeness. And then some.

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GameDaily

Options like the hotseat multiplayer turn out being a massive waste of time. Lastly, the expansion doesn't integrate very well with Medieval II, with each campaign operating like a stand-alone, multi-part, Total War scenario.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 35 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lysander S gave it a2:
While it claims to add 100+ new units, there are only around 5-6. The rest are reskins of the units in the original game. Exactly the same about the new buildings. The "9 new agents" are, once again, reskins, with spies turned into "scouts" and diplomats into "guides". Hotseat mode is a joke. Seriously. And finally, there's the gameplay, which is still just as flawed and broken as the original medieval 2, only with a few additions they decided to leave out of the original game, such as Boiling Oil as siege defenses.

Chris M gave it a10:
This game is well balanced and somewhat historically accurate and is well balanced

Pedro D. gave it a3:
3! Believe me it's hard for me to post this since i'm a long time fan of the series but i'm completely disapointed with this expansion. The least i can say it's only as enhoyable as replaying Medieval Total War 2. My particular gripe is with the New World campaign. I mean how insanely wrong can you get it? All that CA have done is taken the european soldiers and gave them a native coat of paint. I mean surely it's the most false idea to see them fight in formations, come on, these dudes where all about surprise and ambushing not standing in a line in a rectangle formation and standing toe to toe with musket wielding europeans. What a let down.

Bob B. gave it a10:
This game has a near perfect campaign, it is the best strategy game around.

John H. gave it a6:
It is my fav single player game at the moment. But, it's simply not a multiplayer game at all and that makes my score a 6 instead of a 9 or 10. If it was almost was as good in multiplayer as it is in single player it could rival Civilization imo.

Novahawk gave it a5:
I would have to agree with what Meestyk pi said about this title. He forgot to mention another enormous flaw about this game, , which inherited it from the original Medieval total war 2 title. Since the naval battles are "still" not RTS like land battles, there is evidently no real strategy here. The only way to win is to overwhelm the enemy fleet with numbers and quality of your fleet. But, since your fleet can only move so far as it can in one turn, the flaw being that when you watch your own fleet trying to destroy an enemy fleet, the enemy fleet will be able to successfully escape your own fleet (while taking light to heavy casualties), and then live another day even if you run out of moves! In reality, this is totally unreal because naval battles last only until one or the other fleet is under. But here, you will face an enemy fleet that will flee for as long as they still have men on board! 5 for selling us the same game and a laughing stock AI.

Meestyk pi gave it an8:
Total War: Kingdoms gets an 8 from me for 2 reasons. While the devs hold back improvements to make more money from expansions and sequels in secrecy, and 2nd, for playing it safe and copying a safe formula from other games that already successfully introduced sea warfare in games like Sea Dogs, Age of Sails, BB, VC, Rise and Fall, etc... to their upcoming game. There isn't any new elements to Total War: Kingdoms, because pretty much any contents into Kingdoms are from Rome: Total War. More paint, more scripts, more variety of units, more land to conquer, but all is easily added with the editor. The combat system remains the same as in Rome. AI is still buggy as usual when you watch a battle unfolds before you. You still can observe that the cavalry or even the infantry has a "rigid" behaviour of catching up to the enemy before the final slaughter in which there's a lack of cohesiveness into the mechanics. Also, when you observe one of your units pursuing a spread out enemy unit instead of being close and in formation, that's when you truly see where the game has gone down the drain... It's an awful feeling to see your enemy make a successful escape (just because your units cannot individually spread out to make a final blow to the enemy as they tend to reform themselves somehow, very poor AI) while your own units waste their breath chasing them to the edge of the battle map thus having to fight them again at a later time. Therefore, the devs never improved this engine even after Rome: Total War as they claimed. Definitely not a buy in future games from them if there is little to no changes to the AI behaviour. Those who gave a 10, increase your medication.

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