Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms Expansion Pack

by Sega Of America, Inc.

Product Features

• 4 new campaigns-Britannia, Teutonic, Crusades, and New Worlds
• 110 new units, 13 new factions, 9 new agents, 5+ new multiplayer scenarios
• New technology trees governed by religion
• 60+ new territories across four new maps
• 20 new custom maps, 1v1 hottseat multiplayer campaign mode , Control multiple armies in a single battle.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000PIRVQI
• Item Weight: 3.8 ounces
• Media: DVD
• Release Date: August 28, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,780 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms is the official expansion to last year's award-winning Medieval II Total War, presenting players with all-new territories to explore, troops to command, and enemies to conquer. Kingdoms is the most content rich expansion ever produced for a Total War game, with four new campaigns centered on expanded maps of the British Isles, Teutonic Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. In Medieval II, players were only given a tantalizing 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 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, allowing players to play one-versus-one campaign games on the same computer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Four games in one!..., August 31, 2007

By 

Acoma - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms Expansion Pack (DVD)

Okay, first off about the multi-player hotseat thingie..don't really know about it and not my cup of tea so in this review I won't touch on it because quite frankly this is a game I really wouldn't want to play with anyone else. It's a "me" game.

With that being said, this is a nice addition to the Total War franchise. Sure, there are mods you can pick up to tweak it, but nobody makes a mod better than the folks that actually designed the game. In each of the campaigns you have cool triggers that add a dynamic flavour such as Richard and Philip II reinforcing the crusades in the Holy Lands and the Baron's Alliance in the Brittania campaign.

I had some preconceived notions about Kingoms, in that I fully expected some dinky little maps and about 5 hours playtime per campaign. Ohhhhhh no sir, these are full fledged campaigns with lots of territories and tons of time to eat up. They are all quite large, but the Americas campaign map is vast and was extremly fun playing the Apachean tribes. Nothing says "yippie" when your apache dog soldiers are charging and doing that Indian war cry you've heard in every John Wayne movie.

There is no big upgrade over Total War II...ergo, there is no major graphic or engine overhaul, it's simply more campaigns to play - a lot more. One of the nicest things I liked on the new campaigns is that you get a few of the top end units to start so you don't have to wait years to see how that Greek Fire Thrower works or get the uberest Templar Cavalry.

I have had no technical problems on Vista 32-bit with Dual core 2.13ghz, 2gb RAM and NVIDIA 7600 video card.

Not much more to say that hasn't been showcased in previews and you can read from the description up top (which is accurate except the multi-player thingie which I really don't care about) other than if you liked Total War 2 then you are going to really love Kingdoms.

Pros:
- Same good looking graphics as Total War 2
- Sound is amazing with new songs for each of the factions and campaigns
- Tons more units
- Very big campaign maps

Cons:
- Ummm...perhaps the multi-player capability which apparently isn't that great.

49 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Be Aware, October 15, 2007

By 

S. Hedges - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms Expansion Pack (DVD)

I have been a loyal fan of TW since Shogun but I doubt I will buy another. This XP will install securom onto your PC without your permission and unless you are very computer savy you will not be able to remove it. Securom is known to conflict with many other programs (including other anti-piracy programs ironically enough). The only way we can fight this nonsense is to "vote with our wallets" and not purchase games that employ such tactics.

At the very least, SEGA should clearly state on the box what is installed on your PC when you install the game and the consequences of that action. Then you as the buyer would be able to make an educated decision about whether you still wanted to purchase it.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but...., September 5, 2007

By 

T. Pratt (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms Expansion Pack (DVD)

I have more than got my money's worth from the original. Will I with this release? Perhaps. As others have noted, it really is a collection of mods - but then I don't do multiplayer anymore, so poor functionality in this respect doesn't bother me.

I had a lot of difficulty installing. It kept on getting hung up trying to install patch 1.3 saying the patch 1.2 had "modified the files" (well DUH!). I tried doing a clean install of the original game and had the same result. These processes took a lot of time and produced a lot of frustration. Eventually I had do do another clean install, then install 1.2 & 1.3 manually - then the individual campaigns installed correctly using the install engine. as usual, the official sites were of zero value in troubleshooting. I reduced the rating to reflect these problems.

So far, I have nearly completed the Crusades campaign as the Kingdom of Jerusalem. At medium difficulty for game and battle it hasn't presented much of a challenge. I still have issues with the attack ratings of some of the units - armoured knights and quality archers should DEVASTATE light infantry, but they don't. Historically, a light infantry man (not a spearman) had about as much chance of killing an armoured knight as a guy throwing rocks has at disabling an M1 Abrams tank. While we're on that topic, just because a knight's horse got killed didn't mean he was out of it or dead - he simply fought on foot, and quite effectively too - but this is not reflected in the game.

The bottom line: is it worth $29.95 plus shipping? Yes. Buy it. I look forward to trying some of the harder factions and campaigns.