Game Review - "Medieval Total War"

You wouldn't pick it up from the regular content of this blog, but I happen to be one of those geeky gaming enthusiasts. Though I have a certain talent at, and respect for, arcade games of the action genre, my true love has always been for strategy gaming. And lately, I've been blissing out on the already somewhat dated (but I've never been a newness fetishist) computer game "Medieval Total War."

When I was a child, we had a board game called "Afrika Korps" which was one of those hex-mapped unit-based games where little chips were used to represent various units. I took an inordinate pleasure in setting up the board in its initial configuration, with all the little pink and blue chips representing the German and allied forces arrayed throughout North Africa during 1942. It was meant to be two-player, but I used to play it by myself - hatching up counter-historical hypotheticals, then playing them out to see what would happen. "What if Rommel had done this? What if Eisenhower had done that?" I'm not sure that I'd describe the activity as "fun", but it gratified an imaginative craving that I've always had. Growing up poor in a huge family, the only travel available was the kind you did in your head, and such games allowed a latitude of imaginative movement that books could hardly provide.

As I aged, this interest gradually bifurcated. I developed an interest in multi-player competitive strategy games, like Risk or Axis and Allies. Such games are fun, but often, just like chess, hinge far more on understanding the personalities and inclinations of your fellow players than on abstract strategic questions. But I had a parallel passion for the more solitary endeavors of computer-based single-player strategy sims, like the old Ancient Art of War, and most especially the redoubtable Universal Military Simulator (UMS) - a completely ungilded attempt to painstakingly recreate the conditions of actual historical battles from equipment differentials to terrain effects.

Most such games tended to suffer from a schism between strategic and tactical components. Empire was an early apotheosis of the computer strategy game, but had no tactical component to speak of. UMS, a purely tactical game, was followed by UMS II, which tried to incorporate a global strategic element, and failed miserably. Guns and Butter was an intriguing game focused on strategy, but like most such games, it really only demanded a good understanding of the formulae which drove its resolution system, making it more of an exercise in mathematics than strategy. The Ancient Art of War was an early attempt to integrate strategy with tactics. There were several types of units which you could group and move around a map, and conflicts were resolved in a separate system pitting the individual soldiers of the unit against one another. It was promising, but ultimately suffered greatly from the technical limitations of older PC's (I used to play it on a CGA-monitor, with a computer that had nothing more than two 5 1/4" floppy drives). As long as we're on the subject of old games integrating strategy with tactics, I think an honorable shout-out is owed to the game of Archon for the Commodore 64. If you remember, it was a chess-board game of the forces of light vs. dark. When two pieces contested a square, an arcade battle would ensue between the pieces, with forces getting a bonus for battles on their color (and a large number of squares shifting color throughout the game). Several years later, a version would be released for the PC that sucked dead cow balls. But the original remains unrivalled for fun and playability, especially as a multiplayer game combining a strategic and arcade element.

During the EGA and early VGA period there were three games which really ascended to the superlative stratosphere.

The first of these was exclusively strategic and is probably familiar to most. Sid Meier's infamous Civilization. It was a 2-d representation of the advance of civilization that was, quite frankly, incredible. Its popularity was great enough that it spurred an entire genre of explicit derivative games. Its sequel, Civilization II, is universally better esteemed than the original, which is probably fair, but misses several deteriorations in quality that the underlying game conceit took during the upgrade. I still play Civ II, but I'd happily pare out many of the more retarded branches of the technology tree which make the game so precariously balanced. In the original, mobile unit technology never really advanced between the development of the Chariot and the development of the tank. In the sequel, this was wisely changed, but overdone... producing such distractingly particular units (and functionally useless) as "the Elephant" and "Alpine Troops." Government types received a much-needed revamp, but the addition of "Fundamentalism" proved a drag on the gameplay, as computer players would freeze their advancement and swarm the globe with massive armies of cost-free low-tech units. The original had a solid A.I. and kept a strong focus on truly major advances in human life. The second was overladen with gee-whiz features and actually has a weaker A.I. system (not to mention a map designer that universally generates weird spaghetti continents). It's great strength over the original, though, is in its incredibly flexible scenario editor, and the multitude of excellent scenario pieces which were developed by the game's designers and aficionados. It's great weakness were the expansion packs like "Call to Power" which only laded down the already creaking core gameplay with more stupid and unbalancing conceits. The only real rationale behind Civ II was to justify through change an upgrade of the excellent original meant to harness the greater capabilities of computers. In many ways, the sci-fi follow on to Civilization II, Alpha Centauri represents the more perfect fulfillment of the promise of Civ II, as it actually jettisoned a lot of the sillier aspects of game play and provided a beautiful milieu with an imaginative sci-fi technology tree.

The second noteworthy game of that period was one which never, to my mind, received its due share of credit. The game was known as Command HQ and was actually a pretty decent integration of strategic and tactical elements within a unified and real-time game interface. Players could go head-to-head in a battle of world domination using infantry, armor, air, and naval units. The map was a two-D grid of squares (EGA compatible!) with each unit occupying one square, and extending a "zone of control" into the surrounding eight. When units overlapped in their zones of control, combat would ensue. Units were produced in cities, which also generated income. In order to move around the map, they required oil. The need for oil and income necessitated conflict over cities and oil-producing regions, and the game led to really fun re-enactments of World Wars I & II, in addition to three theoretical future wars... WWIII between Russia and the West and two set in the distant future with randomly created diplomatic starting conditions. The tactical component of the game lay in understanding the nature of zone of control and the relative capacities of various units. By massing units and moving them in coordinate offensives, and most importantly, withdrawing depleted units behind your lines before they could be destroyed, the game provided a great reward to a player with tactical acumen. The computer A.I., unfortuately, was terrible. However, the game could be played directly over the modem, and I experienced many a trouncing at the hands of expert players. Despite its primitive tech, the game remains well-paced, enjoyable, and easy to use, and I still play it on occasion. Tragically, it has never been upgraded to accomodate today's super-baud modems, let alone internet cables, so multiplayer is virtually impossible (believe me, I've tried... though probably a direct serial connection would still work).

The last great mention of this period was Caesar II, a really enjoyable hybrid game advancing the Ancient Art of War integration of battlefield tactics with strategic play. In the game, you represented a Roman provincial governor, moving up through progressively more difficult provincial administrations in a rivalry with another governor. One component of the game was a sort of "Sim City: Rome" in which you built a capital city building by building, trying to ensure that residential neighborhoods were served by the municipal water supply and patrolled by the town guard. Another component was provincial administration, as you tried to develop industries and remote garrisons throughout your province, and to fend off rebellions, incursions and invasions. The third component was a tactical battle in which armies faced off against one another as an array of units. Commands were given on the unit level, and as the units clashed, the individual fighters of the unit would take one another on. It had a wonderful variety of units reflecting a variety of historical troop types and was really a superlative game. Unfortunately, Caesar III aborted this whole line of development, focusing exclusively on the "SimCity" component of the game, and eliminating both the provincial map and the excellent battle feature (which now took place within the simulated city environment). Caesar III was a travesty of technology against the excellent core gameplay of Caesar II and an abandonment of the line of game development that Caesar II epitomized.

As the years passed, excellent developments have come out in both strategic and tactical games. The excellent WarCraft and StarCraft series (and their surprisingly dull counterpart, Age of Empire) are both often misportrayed as "strategy" games. In fact, both are almost exclusively tactical. Both games have a logistical component in resource-gathering and building-construction, but such aspects of the game are really only the material preconditions used to determine your army's size and composition. For the most part, the game hinges almost entirely on one's ability to successfully command several units with multiple specialized capacities in a real-time action environment. The games are great fun, enormously satisfying, and come with excellent campaign-mode features. But, in the end, they're incredibly mentally engaging arcade games. They will forever hold my gratitude for finally bringing into balance the technical ambitions of 3-d capable graphics with enjoyable game play. As far as I can tell, these games were the first truly enjoyable 3-d action games that weren't based upon the flight-simulator branch of the family tree (from the old vector-lined topographies of F1: Flight Simulator and the sci-fi classic Elite through the successful Wing Commander series and on into the more terrestrial "first-person-shooter" genre with its many hits (Duke Nukem 3d, Half-Life) and misses (Quake, Doom, original Castle Wolfenstein) (fighting games didn't produce much of note between the passable Mortal Kombat series until Soul Calibur II, which still trumps its successor)).

One side-genre that bears mentioning at this point is the "builder-games." The archetype, and grand-daddy of this game tradition would be the infamous SimCity, which I've already mentioned tangentially several times. As anyone with a passing awareness of games knows, this gradually spawned a whole host of derivatives, from the forgettable SimAnts to the strangely captivating Sims, which entrances several people I know. An early rival in the genre, though, was game known as Populous, in which the player was a deity vying for influence among mortals with a rival in a battle spanning hundreds of worlds. On the game map, human figures would carry out their lives, while you would shape their development with various forms of divine intercession. Kind of like the movie Highlander, it was one of those things where the conceit far outclassed its instantiation. Though intriguing, it simply wasn't very entertaining. However, this conceit reached its own archetypal fulfillment in Tropico, an excellent game in which you rule a small Caribbean island as the dictator. Remarkably detailed individuals with names, families, political allegiances, leadership traits, occupations and homes live out their lives on the island while you direct the economic and political development of the island. You must struggle to develop your island while retaining control over the populace, and the game often throws competition at you in pleasingly organic ways... you begin to recognize dissident intellectuals, for example, who seem to be constantly undermining public order... and sometimes face the temptation to have them shot, imprisoned, or otherwise harassed to keep them under control... through its fusion of immaculate detail with an entrancing gameplay system and interface, it's truly a success of immersive fiction gameplay.

Medieval Total War is another hybrid game which successfully ties together several components from these various lines of development. The "campaign level" occurs like a classic board game, with a beautifully illustrated map of feudal Europe divided into historical medieval provinces. The game spans the centuries from 1088 to 1453 and draws upon a wealth of historical details. It begins with 12 (playable) major factions and several minor factions. On this board, units and castles are reprsented as "tokens." There are military units (of astonishing detail and variety) and diplomatic units (various prelates, royal figures, emissaries, assassins, etc.). Production is handled at the provincial level, developing structures which allow one to produce various units, items, or resources. Much like Tropico, the game actually tracks the personalities and personal attributes of individual persons, most especially the nobles who command your various units, though even the combat histories of individual unit members. Combat is resolved in a system which is an excellent refinement of the old battle gameplay from Caesar II. Soldiers are individually rendered and fight one another in individual melee, based upon fastidious integration of personal attributes, equipment differential, terrain and weather effects, etc. Commands are given at the unit level, with a lag between the delivery of an order and its receipt. The battles unfurl in real-time and pleasingly watch like little digitized movies (if I were a stoner (God forbid!), I'd recommend playing while high).

The game is enormously detailed. You build sea units which can be used to develop trade routes between provinces. With so many factions in contention, you are forced to juggle the various competing rivalries of neighbors and distant rivals. Your king is an actual person, who ages, marries, sires offspring, and eventually dies. Major historical events are noted and sometimes impact events within the game. In addition to one's expansionist objectives, you have to monitor the religious composition of your province, fend off insurrections and pretenders to the throne, pay attention to the marital status of your sons and daughters, balance the desire for territorial gain with the dividends of peaceful trade.

In short, it's a game geek's wet dream. Unfortunately, it's so complicated that it's neither easy to play nor fast-moving. Inattentiveness to one element of gameplay can have disastrous consequences. But in its size, detail, and even its slowness it evokes that same loving historicism of those old chit-based boardgames like Afrika Korps. I've found that the most one can reasonably hope to play in a single sitting is the reign of a single king. Though this is definitely a mark against it by the standards of "fun-based gameplay" it actually is great from the perspective of "historical reconstructionist gameplay" as the death of one king and the rise of his son or brother (or other contender) usually leads to a dramatic shift in focus and priorities, as the new prince enters the scene without the benefit of the old ruler's allegiances and personal attributes.

What it ends up yielding, after great investment of time and energy, is a rich and detailed portrait of a contra-factual history. What if the Danes had focused on extending influence into the heartland of Germany rather than predating upon the West European coastline? Well, in my gamed experience, their early fearsome Viking soldiery would get trounced by Austrian cavalry in the open terrain of Central Europe, leaving them seriously trailing their historical counterparts within a few generations. What if the Spanish had reconquered Granada in 1122? What if the Crusades had managed to maintain a viable Christian kingdom in Outremer? What if the Turks had advanced beyond the mountains of Kosovo or the Almohads had swept past the Pyrenees into the Loire? I'm not saying that this game provides anything remotely approaching "true" answers... but it definitely provides intriguing hypothetical scenarios that are great fodder for those inclined to cheap historical imagination.

I'd be hesitant to "recommend" this game to anyone. But if you have that special taste, I think you'd find it richly rewarding. It does have a pretty clunky UI at times, but on the whole I'd call it a roaring success.