All Total War Games Tier List
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- Опубліковано 25 лис 2021
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All Total War Games ranked based on how good their release was and how good they are in 2021.
Please note this is an unofficial video and is not endorsed by SEGA or the Creative Assembly in any way. For more information on Total War, please visit www.totalwar.com - Ігри
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Goes to max screen on my phone.
Accidentally hits the end of the vid
F spoilers.
Welp now to watch it and check out instant gaming.
.
.....
Thank you very much mate! I was hunting for a discounted AoE 4 now I have it thanks to you
RoR tier list plez
I’ve had a pretty good pc for awhile now but Attila has always run like crap for me. U gave 3 kingdoms a really high score for a game that you heavily critiqued. From your initial review of it, the underlying issue still remains, that there’s not enough replay ability for it.
"Rome total war was so good it ruined my life" Legend 2021
BASED
SIGMA GRINDSET
Aye, reminds me of "TvTropes will ruin your life".
Its funny cause its true
I remember the first time my Hasttati were terrorized by Carthaginian war elephants ... totally awesome!!
Wife: "I haven't seen you all week. You've got a mistress, don't you!?"
Husband: "Urban cohort...urban cohort..."
Thx, I couldn't quite make out what Legend said his friend said, now I know.... oh fuckin' LOOOOL
I can remember it well, the anticipation, waiting for that last barracks to be built, so yeah...
"Urban Cohort...urban cohort"... indeed.
That made me laugh way more than it should have
@@Mookee1914 thanks, needed the reminder, cackling way more than I should for a second time, pmsl 🤪
Great, the husband is cheating with an Urban Cohort!
you wonder how many great people weren't born because of gaming !!!
Got a friend into total war years ago when he was having some problems by showing him medieval. When he got his hands on medieval 2 he basically became a hermit for a year, at the end of which he showed me his max difficulty campaign where he had taken over the known world as Scotland (his name's Scott) I don't know whether I helped or harmed his life, but I was very proud of him anyway.
I’m gonna guess “harmed him” (just knowing how much I can sink into these games)!
(Jk, hopefully that was obvious)
This is absolutely me right now. I've been playing for a week straight (on Very Hard), haven't slept and it has harmed my grades. The game is THAT good.
I must be the only one who actually really likes Empire and Napoleon. The land battles are neat cause the time period is cool (even if the strategy is mostly who has more elite infantry and artillery) but the naval battles are what I love. Naval in those two games is honestly better than in any other total war game I've played, though mostly because I'm a big fan of the age of sail. It does have nice mechanics too though. Empire definitely should be above a D ranking though imo.
I think the same. Empire for me personally is the second place after Warhammer
Napoleon is my #3 tw title, just below med2 and shogun fots
Played it recently and it felt like breath of fresh air after spending way too much time on this "warhammer dodging missles simulator"
I love Napoleon.
Well you are right there was some good Elements naval battles, economy, research and yeah great time periode... BUT diplomacy is nearly useless and biggest problem the ai is since rome total war 1 the worst in battles, deployment bugs and scraficing all cavalry at the beging of the battle for free... when you played warhammer 2 or even attila or rome 2, its really paintfull & boring when come back to a empire total battle. Not enjoyable better battle ai & diplomacy would be a great game. so its fair to get ranked at the bottom
I just really dislike that all land battles feel extremely repetitve due to most infantry being more or less the same with varying stats.
Now we need a tier list of all Legend's tier lists.
lmfao
We need a tier list of all his profanities, I know one that will be sure S tier 🤣
@@pascaldifolco4611 is it 'IT'S FUCKING GARBAGE' ?
@@pascaldifolco4611 Ha. It'd be a whole load of "REDACTED" in 2021. And "cunt" which you can still get away with
@@rickkybobby8118 For now.
But his workarounds are pretty hilarious too.
Such as '' unpaid interns '' for slaves. Which is pretty damn accurate.
I always loved sniping an enemy general in Attila when they attack by boat since land units had such an INSANE sea sickness debuff
flying rocks go bruhhh, love it
Goddamnit Patterrz why are you everywhere D:
I love Attila and I hate it.. It's so hard as Roman's and yes it's meant to but damn..
@@Kvs-vf9nt 1212 makes it so much better tho.
Still no as close to Rome two which is above all other total war games by a long shot.
@@Kvs-vf9nt gotta play 1212
Attila is still my favorite, most people disagree with that but i do enjoy dark and miserable tone of the game. Also, the only game in the franchise where the battle are actually epic in the truest meaning of the word. The music, visual effects and the theme are just ridiculously on point.
Attila is super underrated. Feels like a horror game when you’re playing as Rome and barbarians are everywhere. Also the fire and destruction mechanics are soooo much better than any other tw.
Attila seems like the most difficult one aswell with the Roman empire at its collapse and on legendary difficultyl
Clearly the one I played the most, with Shogun 2 and Medieval 2 completing the top 3. I actually really like the settlement management in Attila. One of the the main reasons I always default back to Attila. Enemies razing everything is annoying tbf.
Tottaly agree with you, my 2 favorites are warhammer 2 and attila, mainly the DLC age of charlemagne.
@@user-gq8ht4nw7i The problem I have with it is that its very missile focused. My armoured romans get destroyed even in Tetsudo.
The upgrades are broken and awful.. roman units are just shit especially early.
The time period is awesome.. but its not portrayed well in the game.. its not elite roman units fighting hopeless battles against barbarian hordes. Your legio get raped by germanic band or whatever lol.
Also I dont care what people think but its not that hard.. any TW game can be cheesed. Attila is easy to cheese with the general death mechanic for example.. I won battles I should never have won just because of that dumb "feature". The AI cheats like crazy and it shows too..
Shogun 2 remains the pinnacle. Just my take. A truly balanced and weighty game that requires real strategy. It's aged beautifully, too.
assuming your savefile doesn't get corrupted. or if you dare use mods the soundfiles get screwed up (archer units make cannon sounds), but yeah, it's pretty good
I like the sync kills, even though I wished for better sync kills in basically any Total War game...even though I think they bring more gameplay problems that might make the added immersion not worth it.
Just finished Attila as WRE on legendary without abandoning everything except Italy. Absolute torture, basically had to fight and cheese the same settlement defence battle like 300 times.
yeah i feel the pain, endless pyrric defensive battles in every single town against a 3-4 times more numerous enemy
@@Tonyx.yt. I figured that the limit of enemy's numerical superiority is 5 times your numbers. Except if your troops are specifically effective against his, for example Romans with their testudo vs horse archers.
i manage to complete it on legendary without abandoning anything at all, but i basically played along with Legend's this is total war as WRE campaign from 2016 and used some cheeky strats to knock out some of my barbarian neighbours early on.
you're right, it is torture. Thank god i am a masochist.
Also, i would argue that ERE campaign is even more difficult on legendary, due to sassanid's vassal swarm
@@vladimirvovk8284 that might be true, but you can cheese their economy and WRE is swarmed by everyone anyway.
@@HB013b yes, around 5 still manageable with some cheese, 3 times dont requires much effort
Playing as Bactria in Rome 2 was one of the most enjoyable campaigns I've ever played in the entire franchise. You're essentially playing an unholy combination of Macedonia and Scythia with their horse archers. The start isn't difficult, but it's hard to maintain momentum due to how far the other settlements are from you.
Baktria was my first Rome 2 playthrough ever! 😁
I remember playing then once too, one of my more memorable campaigns along with masilla for some reason
Empire was my first ever Total War game and still my favorite to this day. Its mostly the era it is set in that carries it so hard for me, gameplay might not be the best but the era is so awesome. Couldn't really get into Napoleon because it lacked so much content plus only like 5 playable nations
......darthmod............darthmod.....m
Abolutely with you. Empire was a well rounded tw. I dont understand his reasons.
Yeah it was my first too and was also the one I played the most. For me the only weaknesses are that there were so many new playing mechanics implemented, but very few to none were used to its full potential. That’s one of the reasons why I think Empire 2 needs to happen, because everytime I play it I have fun however I always have to think about what could be.
@@erecvonaue7636 No, his reasons are completely justifiable. Empire was not a well-rounded TW game at all. Here are some of the many flaws with the game:
- No unit collision with no workarounds, essentially making melee combat one of the worst in the franchise
- Diplomacy is fucking broken
- Retarded AI: Lining up the infantry 5 feets in front of your men to commit suicide, charging their general head-on, very finicky unit behaviors
- Perhaps the worst siege battles in the franchise's history
- Forgettable and repetitive music
- Little unit variations (though this might be due to the setting)
- Guns in this game sound worse than those in Medieval 2 lol
- Square formation is utterly useless
@@erecvonaue7636 Empire isnt bad at all but when you compare it to the other TWs, it just falls behind. Keep in mind it was also glitchy af at launch. I'm not sure if they ever fixed it.
Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai was incredible. The Naval battles were amazing you could get Naval shore batteries involved in the Naval battle if it was at a port and your Navy could bombard land targets like a Black Ark from WH2 and on some maps you could see the Navy in the distance out to sea.
Medieval 2 is such a great game even after all these years it still is a very enjoyable game to play from time to time.
It was my favourite Total War game until I played Warhammer II
Plus the modding community for it is insane
@@peregrinemiles7936 Seems like all the mods are older. Are there newer mods for it. I just grabbed SS 6.4 last night and it seemed all the mods were 2012 or earlier.
SS is a solid mod, but I usually play around in the LOtR mods these days, they tend to be fairly up to date.
@@nealm6764 Divide and Conquer is a Lord of the Rings mod and it's still in active development with a fairly big community. Likewise the Call of Warhammer Beginning of the End Times mod. I believe those 2 also has a lot of sibling mods floating around so yeah, fantasy mods is more active than historical mods nowadays
Balance issues aside, the Atilla campaign is engaging because it's SO hard, but you can make such a difference on the battlefield. It really adds a lot of excitement to the battles as each one can really turn the tide. The Mongol stack spam does make Eastern factions almost unbearably difficult, though.
Rome total war still has some of the best most interesting mechanics of any total war game. The way your generals would organically grow depending on where you placed them, who their parents were and how they performed. It makes warhammers perk system look childish. They even made it so that in battle the speeches were generated based on your generals personality, the size of your army and the size of the enemy, the state of the war with the enemy, your battle history, where you are, and a ton of other stuff that just made it feel so organic. Add the fact that the battle map was generated based on where you attacked or were attacked, if you were near the coast you could see the sea and if there was a fleet in the sea you could see that fleet, fighting near a settlement you could see it in the distance, even roads were included. The population system that added a high level of management to your army sizes and settlement growth and drastically effected how the game was played on higher difficulties. The fact that replenishment was incredibly difficult needing to go back to a settlement with the appropriate building so you could replenish units made every battle count and every casualty matter. You had to really manage your army over a campaign, attrition really took its toll. The sheer ambition of Rome is totally unprecedented and unmatched by any other game in the series. The level of immersion and replay value was staggering with all these organic stories and characters emerging over the course of a campaign. It really made those heroic victories feel heroic, and I don’t really think that any other game in the series has quite come close to that.
Medieval 2 has all of that and more though. Thats why its rated to so highly, it took the great things about Rome and polished/expanded them.
Medieval II was so great because it was the last TW game before the "GREAT AGE OF DLC"
Yes it had an expansion pack, but the sheer diversity of units in each faction alone was amazing.
Not to mention the great events, black plague, Mongols invasion, discovering the Americas, just to name a few.
If they can make Medieval THREE as good as two it goes straight to S tier
They will make md3 barebones on release and fill it up with different factions as an avalanche of DLC, same as with warhammer, because it makes them much more money. Better not raise your expectations for release.
M3 should be made on an all new engine, "Total War III," which would basically reverse engineer the TWII engine but with the addition of all the best received mechanics of other TW titles.
The allure of M2 itself was that no two factions played the same and that every culture had its unique 'flavour,' much like the TW Warhammer series.
@@Arcomist Yeah Video game's business model nowadays are pretty sucks for consumer. Better wait until Sale to buy it (or just not on day one release date), because besides obtain it cheaper, I think you'll get a much stable game...
When does the Americas get discovered? My game always crashes before I get to that point
@@godlymoose9118 I think it's not a specific date, (it's been years since I've played) It's more a navel port tech you unlock, at which point you can build the biggest ships, then basically you sail west through the Fog of war until you find something.
It's so sad that Empire wasn't a good game... So much potential for Empire II with new technologies.
Yes. I hope one day CA will make an Empire II game.
@@Raider0075 Empire 2 would be like Easter and Christmas at the same day...
I can't decide which I want more, Medieval 3 or Empire 2, but I know I want either more than I want Warhammer 3
Empire was amazing back in the day
Hmm I loved Empire, but legend is right with the diplomacy there, its awful
Been watching you since maybe 2013-2015, crazy to see you review these games all these years later seeing you have played them and now in Warhammer 👍🏼 love you legend, will always stay updated!
See as a big fan of 'The Last Kingdom' TV series, I loved playing Thrones of Britannia. It's certainly stripped back compared to the non Saga TWs, but it has great siege maps, excellent UI design and runs super well. They also did fix a fair few of the issues it had at launch in patches. It's by no means perfect and you do likely have to be interested in the time period, but for a quick campaign every now and then I actually think it's very underrated.
For me Thrones of britannia is underrated and one of my favorites
Thrones of Britannia was my first TW game (super odd I know) but it'll always have a soft spot in my heart, especially since I didn't know any other YW game at the time.
@@Droidman1231 try shogun 2 u will love it
I also especially love the food system that require you to have enough food to sustain each unit. Combined with minor settlements not having walls, it actually allows you to wage economic warfare on your enemies by capturing their sources of food production, and have the same done to you. It makes it so that even the strongest kingdoms have a "soft underbelly" that needs to be protected and battles become much more decisive and important to the outcome of a campaign.
Like what King Alfred said in Season 1 of the Last Kingdom, "we cannot let our enemies march through our lands unopposed." When I'm being invaded and my main army is elsewhere, it becomes a desperate race to raise a force capable of repelling the enemy before they cripple my economy and food supply. It feels like the fate of the kingdom is my hands, and hands of the hastily assemble militia that will fight and die to protect their families.
@@strikemasterice2004 Yeah man, I love the fact that i can not recruit full 20 stacks because I can't feed them all and the settlement scheme which is similar to shogun is also good
My first encounter with the Total War Series was Rome Total War, I loved the opening cinematic.
Even tried recreating it in custom games once with the same factions and units while trying to make it as accurate as possible, to predictably poor results.
Music still holds up, though.
I used to play it on my Dad's old dell desktop, windows xp and 256 mbs of ram. Rome ran like shit but I played it everyday I could hahaha. Miss those days
The Divinitus soundtrack really sells it when you're on the campaign map adding to the mysticism of the classical/roman era.
A part of me wants Legend to write an autobiography just to see how much Total War is intertwined with his life.
The very first Rome game I just played so friggin much. Grew hooked to your channel because so many things I remember learning to cheese you were right on it. Was like watching my past.
I remember seeing someone playing shogun total war back around 2001 and remember being completely blown away at the strategy involved. Flanking attacks, hiding units in trees etc. was something I don't recall seeing in any other game up until that point. I never knew the name of the game at the time, so I didn't see any game remotely approaching the strategic depth of shogun until Dawn of War came out with its cover, morale and stealth mechanics.
The games Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II had these mechanics and came out in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and were also 3d games. They were successful, but not to the level shogun was.
I really love that there is separate list of "on release"! That takes away any questions and thinking "what if"
I am one of these Shogun 2 and FOTS returning players. Absolutely love the polish of the game, the sprites' combat animations, the sound design, the art. It really scratches an itch I have about once a year the get into that place and period.
I hope CA can recapture what makes this game special in their future historical titles - Medieval 3 perhaps... wink wink
My main thing with shogun 2, is that I feel like I'm always playing the same faction. To me, unlocking and progressing to new units a very important part of the game... So when every faction has nearly identical rosters, rosters that aren't even that big... that really kills any reason for me to play the game more than once.
I will say that shogun 2 was the first and only total war game where I spent any real time in multiplayer, I can't believe they havent given us the ability to rename and recolor custom elite units since shogun 2.
my medieval 3 is ATilla medival 1212AD mod... ahahahaha
Late campaign FOTS gets so fucking boring though, and all the siege are braindead unless you're doing a traditional units only run. It works well in the early game where there's an almost even balance between traditional and modern units that the AI knows how to use but by the late game every battle consists of marching your artillery/infantry into firing range and then that's it. And the naval battles...If only they played as good as they looked!
@@MaMastoast The samey factions are definitely the Achilles heel of Shogun 2, however it is a much better game as a whole than warhammer AND Three Kindoms.
Otoh, I dont get at all why people like Shogun 2. Theres little depth and strategy in the battles, outside of some dumb skill spam, and despite the visual quality, the unit animations and physics are so weird and unbelievable that it felt like a massive downgrade from Medieval 2. Everything your units did looked so stupid, units just phased through each other all the time. It wasnt even "hollywood" quality that some people try to frame it as, because during fighting most soldiers just standa around doing nothing.
The warscape engine was so much worse here, because they actually made a game about melee.
That doesnt count stuff like all factions being the same, the campaign map being one of the most boring CA has ever made, overpowered super-agents, the naval battles suck...
IMO the series are Medieval 2 was a mess, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes less so. Only Total Warhammer 2 really brought it to a good level of quality.
Rome total war brought the series into my life, medieval 2 total war made it a staple in my games library. Even today I find myself running a campaign on it here and there, the way your generals adapted traits along with the chivalry and dread levels, improved upon Romes traits. Something modern total wars don’t invest as much time into, or have as much weight with especially the fantasy based ones.
now if warhammer 2 has naval combat of empire, layered sieges of medieval 2, infantry melee/ranged battle mechanics/animation of shogun 2 and amphibious landings of rome 2, it will be the greatest total war game in all categories.
If i recall correctly they can't implement naval battles due to it being a separate IP by Games Workshop, Man o War.
But since they abandoned it i do hope that someday we will see naval battles in TWW, the iron dreadnaughts of dwarves shredding everything and being a carrier for gyrocopters sounds fun af
'I skipped classes to play Rome 1, it could ruin my life.'
Well, look where it brought you now :D
Man i fucking loved the OG rome total war.
My dad managed to get the collector's edition which had these amazing metal figurines of various units in the game.
After he got me my own pc i asked for the discs so i could play it, i didn't understand a thing because i was very young but something about controlling those massive armies was just magical to me.
I remember playing the greeks as a kid. Put all the phallanx units blobbed together, in a circle formation. The AI would go crazy trying to run towards the flanks of the spears, but since all units are in circle, the enemy would just bug out trying to find somewhere to charge. 10/10 would put 5 units of phallanx occupying the space of a single unit again.
Pathfinding was so bad turned me off tbh
I also started playing it as a kid! An older cousin showed it to me and I loved it. I was horrible at the campaing, mostly filled my cities with town watch and did not understand why I could not win battle, hahahaha. Loved the quick battle feature though, used it so much!
Never heard of this collector's edition, and can't really find any info on it on the web. Do you have a source or something about it? Really want to see those metal figurines!
Great TA man I needed that honest appraisal, you have saved me a great deal of pain & suffering
personally I absolutely love Attila, it's definitely my favourite total war because of battle mechanics like you said but also the challenge. It has it's flaws like performance and stupid tech traps + corruption mechanics, but other than that I think the campaign is really fun, challenging and immersive. It's the only total war where I feel genuinely threatened by the AI and the first 5 years of WRE and ERE are pretty scary. It gives battles a truly epic feel cos you truly are fighting for the Roman Empire's life and one wrong step could cost you a whole province. It also has arguably the best DLC and mods of any total war game - Last Roman, Age of Charlemagne, 1212 (medieval 2 with better graphics), Ancient Empires (rome 2 but less of a slogfest), Rise of Mordor (Third Age with better graphics). Endless replayability and it has every pre-gunpowder historical total war experience packed in.
One of the things I really miss from Medieval 1 is the ability to give individual generals titles that affect their competency, and that each individual unit had its own captain with traits etc. Died with rome 1 never to return probably
I wish you can attach Heroes/Officers to units so even your random spearmen can have some character to them. The Army veterancy and ranks thing from Rome 2 and Attila was great as well.
@@spamquisition4046 I always loved zooming in and watching the one samurai in ashigaru units ripping through everyone. Would definitely love to get that feeling again but with more detail and customisation
@@destroyah377 Yeah, or the knights and standard bearers leading my unit of peasant spearmen. It'll work so well with Warhammer too since they have all those magic banners.
While not the same feudal set up, 3 kingdoms allows you to give titles (like Coiled Dragon) and those give buffs while increasing salary. I think it's good
Are names of power for Dark Elves in Warhammer 2 not similar?
“Lost a whole GPA cause of Rome Total War”
Same, but with Total War Warhammer II. I literally uninstalled Steam and refuse to redownlod until the college semester is over.
Shogun Fall of the Samurai came out just before some really important exams for me back in High School, I promised myself I'd just ignore it until summer. Was not easy, and I still wasted a lot of time playing standard Shogun 2 but managed to power though. Stay strong brother.
@@winndypops thanks. Once these finals are over, I’mma have a full week where I just game out. Like a mini stay-at-home vacation.
Lol - and here I am, having begun replaying it over the last week with my semester finals coming up in December :D
I agree wholeheartedly with the Troy pick, campaign map looked really good, some decent features, ran really well, introduced some really solid features which would go on to be implemented in Warhammer 2.
I even got the game for free, but I got so bored after finishing it once as Sparta. The battles are so boring, the mythological stuff is good, but they didn't go into it enough and only really half tried.
Completely agree with you regarding the battles in Attila. The battles in Attila is what makes it a A tier game on my list :)
Got my friend into total war through Shogun 2. We've been playing co-op campaigns and having a blast in a game I haven't played in years. My friend fell in love with total war and is now upgrading his PC to run Warhammer 2 so we can co op that too!
good for you, guys
I also had really great co-op campaigns in Shogun 2:FotS and in WH2
especially with giving command to the other player, I was the artillery captain to my friends dwarven armies, that gave him capabilities to micro his slayers and blasting charges etc.
and he was my High Elven Cavalry commander, spurring around the battlefield, delivering devastating charges :D
great fun
@@darth0tator cant wait to carry his ass with magic :D
Same here. Got my friend into the series by getting him to play Shogun 2 and now he blames me for converting him, haha. He’s since played Rome 2 and Attila, and he owns Medieval 2, just hasn’t played it yet.
It's so refreshing to see Medieval 2 and Rome 1 not being put on a SSS+ pedestal in 2021
Why
@@Pikilloification Because there are some very loud people with very thick nostalgia glasses.
@@Vyleea Except some of us still think theyre great even with their flaws. Yes, nostalgia is a big part of it, but this tier list is looking at them with the vein of "Look at what we can do now, and look at the improvements, in hindsight these games werent that great." At the time though? they actually were the best of their kind and among the top of the whole strategy genre. So to say that they DONT deserve a high ranking, is as much a cop out and ignorant idea as thinking theyre the greatest.
@@cyanide7270 Who said they don't deserve high ranking? The SSS+ isn't the only high rank
@@cyanide7270 well, depend what your goal is.
Rating for players who had it at that time? Yes, you are right.
For new ones, who think about buying one of them?
No, it does not matter how good it was, it only matters how well it aged.
The thing i missed the most in MTW2 versus MTW1 is the titles. Provinces had titles and some buildings had titles. They could add to your general, and honoring the general could boost his loyalty. Back then an entire "doom stack" as we call them now could defect and you loose all that time creating them. Making a General the "master of horses" for example could boost the general's loyalty. Also i seem to remember that who you married mattered when it came to diplomacy. Anyways, they were fleshed out games for their ages.
Shogun 2 was my first introduction into the total war franchise and it blew my mind. Getting introduced into the total war gamestyle coming from stratgey game like civ or stellaris gave me everything I wanted in my strategy games. Turn-based campaign with RTS battles. Shogun 2 is amazing. Thinking about it now, the combat was very rock-paper-scissors to the extent that yari peasants hard countered ANY cav in the game, elite or cheap it didnt matter it hard countered it. yari pesents then got hard countered by swords and so on. Campaign wise it was interesting but the factions themselves really didnt play differently. All that changed was the starting location which made the early game varied but mid/late game was the same. Fall of the Samurai played differently enough to be its own game which astounded me and brought in the gunpowder/line battles that I loved so much about empire. Mixing those two made a great combination that helped fix the rock-paper-scissors style of gameplay because yoloing your elite units into low tier gunpowder units would get them killed. In shogun 2 that was a viable strat but in FotS you had to think a little harder.
When it came out, Rome 2 turned me off from the series it was an absolute betrayal for those who preordered. But, it has improved a ton and brought me back to the series, in conjunction with warhammer 2
rome 2 is much better these days
Rome 2 is great nowadays. I waste hours and hours on it.
Ya Rome 2 when it first launched was like a mother killing her kid to me
I think they were over ambitious at launch, which caused them to lose sight of what makes a Total War game great, but they stuck with it for years after release instead of abandoning it and it is actually an amazing game still today. I feel like the game deserves an A for today just because of how much effort CA put into righting the ship that is Rome II, and how they have campaigns that span from the earliest days of Rome, all the way to the beginning of the end with the Empire Divided campaign.
I miss the maps on Rome total war mapping to the actual world. That’s still such a missed feature
Its not. Im presuming you are a Warhammer fan? Even Rome 2 has that.
@@danb4900 yeah I am. It’s good it’s in the historical titles. I skipped everything between Rome and WH1
3K does it
Kind of. I mean the battles where half the map was unclimable hills was always a bit awful.
Thrones has it
Rome 2 was the first Total War title I played and to this day it still has a special place in my heart. I had never played any game like it at the time, so for me it was mindblowing.
I still come back to it from time to time
Shogun total war had the best videos ever from Ninjas to diplomats to Geisha videos. The outcome of a agent was shown during the videos and it was revealed halfway through whether it was a succes or failure, creating great suspense.
Some of those videos were brutal, especially trying to assassinate a Geisha, they were like terminators in Shogun 1 lmao.
Like in Medieval 2
God i remember medieval total war
first total war game i ever played, and i played it when i was like 8. spent far too much time in custom matches with all artillery armies just dumping on castles
My first foray into the Total War series was Medieval 2 and it was absolutely epic. My only previous experiences in RTS were classic like AoE II and Warcraft 2 and 3 and this was mind boggling.
Huge empires and battles and sieging enormous metropolises (were the built building showed!) and 3 walled citadels were amazing for the time!
Even the complexity of game mechanics with diplomats, spies and assassins (and the small videos!) were the reason I spent countless hours on this game! Truly an amazing way into an epic franchise!
I always loved that touch of detail from CA. The fact you can see your buildings on the battle map made you motivated to defend your city.
It should be in S
As far as Empire: Total War goes I liked the setting, and I actually liked the multiplayer. Honestly the campaign really was that awful, but the multiplayer was quite enjoyable back in the day. It's the only Total War game I have put any effort into as far as the multiplayer goes.
Naval battles were so much fun
For me, the map, especially in Europe was a big disappointment. I mean France has two provinces for heavens sake.
I put 800 hours in Empire Total War multiplayer. Loved that game. Sadly, it's completely dead now.
Empire has a better campaign than Napoleon . You only have 4 factions in napoleon
As much as I love TW2 - you have to pay a LOT to get everything if you compare to previous titles. There's still quite a bit of content I don't own
You are absolutely right but also kind of disagree. I mean, yeah if you drop everything to your steam basket and buy at once its somewhere between 2-300$... But do you need to do that? Will you really play with every DLC at once?
If you wait for discounts you can get almost every DLC for 5-10$, sometimes even less. If you use instant gaming you get a similar price, but basically any time. Is 5$ a lot? Not really, its basically a cup of coffee, or half a pack of cigarette in most country. People spend several times more on a casual night out with the guys drinking.
So I bought 1, played it, enjoyed it sometimes for weeks. When I was done, bought the next one. They actually give you really good value as every 5 dollar gives you at least several hours of fun, depending on how good you are at the game. I played the wood elf DLC for at lest 30 hours or even more and it only cost me 8$.
So yes, if you just check the prices and add all of them up it seems expensive, but the value and playtime you can get out of it is insane and well worth it.
Also if we can indeed transfer all DLC to the TW3 that will be insane. Meaning the 5 bucks you spent in TW1 actually serves you in 3 games.
That being said the (extra) content is much more interesting than in previous titles. Factions in Warhammer have very different armies and campaign mechanics. The new campaign mechanics of some DLCs are also unique and very fun. You can play without these DLCs but they help refresh the whole experience over time. Overall, that's why TW2 stays with the highest number of concurrent players by far.
@@Debilinside I don't disagree with that at all, and I like knowing that there is extra content on tap basically when I need more. I guess it partly comes down to whether you're happy with the amount of content you get from the base game at launch. If so, then actually new content released over time gives great value for players and keeps us playing. (Contrast that to day one dlc which is frustrating imho)
Feels good to hear other osts than TWW2 battle music everytime lol
great tierlist as usual
Shogun 2 was my introduction to Total War. I never looked back. I still play it alot... and I might even be able to challenge you on how many hours you have on Warhammer 2. Warhammer 2 though has definitely supplanted Shogun 2 for me. But even though Shogun 2 is unquestionably my favorite (next to TWW2)... I still agree with 95% of what you said. Totally fair assessments. I mean someone could get really nitpicky and go into the smallest details but broad strokes... this is a really good list.
For three kingdoms supposedly they had the Northern Campaigns DLC nearly finished before the plug was cut, it would have been one of the more important dates to settle first part of the entire era.
What is bitter though is that in a way the game doesn't even deserve its title. If you put all the DLC together you would barely just cover most of the "first" part of the Three Kingdoms Era and you would still be missing a lot of great characters too. Which in the game's case is very important versus other total wars. CA could have pulled a Warhammer on it but making a brand new game that has nothing to do with the first doesn't remotely look like a recipe for success.
This is strange to me, because three kingdoms looked very bad from the sidelines and I only ever heard negative things about it.
@@joshua41175 It was a bit of an odd card, for sure. The heroes worked really well imo, but risked turning away both hardcore historical fans for being bs and fantasy fans for not being full-on Dynasty Warriors. And it had very little prospect for proper DLC's left, and the first DLC was an absolute disaster with only 10 unique characters and a passive campaign (I might have been one of the only people out there who actually enjoyed a campaign with them). To add to that, there was very little unit variety and there really were only 1 or 2 strong army setups.
However, it probably still has the best diplomacy system in Total War history, the AI is pretty good 9 times out of 10 (and changes behaviour depending on difficulty settings, which is so undervalued!) and the battles play out very smooth ict contemporary titles. One of the few issues I have left with WH2 is that soldiers take so long to actually start dying. A volley of arrows should kill about 10% of a non-shielded unit, but in WH2 it just shaves off that amount of health with 0 casualties. 3K does this better imo, you actually feel like your combat actions have immediate consequences.
@@the_tactician9858 well I think it's mostly fine because we get to look at it from a table top perspective as well. Yes body's don't fall but individual models have their own hp bars. It is easier to balance imo and just feels better. It just takes a bit of a different perspective to accomplish that.
Should the ever chosen weilding the sword of khaine dab on the haters while moonwalking through kislev? Absolutely.
@@joshua41175 I know that, and it's not like it doesn't work and isn't balanced, it just feels weird, especially when coming from older Total War games, to see an artillery round or magic attack do f*ck all to the number of soldiers of a unit, even though 40 of them just got launched to orbit.
In that same sense, it feels weird to see an army that you just beated to 20% hit points still have half their troops. It fits the game, that I'll agree on, and it works well for Warhammer as a balance to the ridiculous amount of magic or ranged attacks available, but I personally prefer a more realistic system overall.
@@the_tactician9858 I mean, I'll never get over praetorian guard taking a onager to and knock over 13 models and only 2 stay down, so that's why I'm having a hard time seeing where you're coming from. Even in shogun you'd have yari peasants that take multiple flinches from archers before going down.
Attila with mods is a joy and a challenge to play, and it has the work-in-progress Medieval 1212 mod that has great promise as a sort of Medieval 2.5.
If i was to do this vid myself, other than not being as well done, it would be near on identical, rankings and reasoning.
The only reason I differ is personal reason with shogun 2, it came out at a time where playing online with my best mate was especially important because of life issues and Shogun 2 was the first game to really make that work.
Interesting, in my experience the issues with Troy were largely fixed; the chariots were nerfed to a reasonable degree, they can't bowl over elite infantry anymore; they've now settled into their role as chaff destroyers. Collision... okay, yes, still a problem sometimes, but it can be managed.
And the fundamental combat, where flanking is so heavily optimized, feels super good. And the factoins feel very different; Hector's standard anvil-and-hammer tactics are very different from Odysseus's mad skirmisher kiting, is in turn very different from Hippolyta's high energy hammer-and-hammer gameplay.
There were still some gamebreaking bugs and some really frustrating things when I last played(September) and I don’t think there was a patch since then.
Health doesn’t increase with general level like it should. Achilles’ challenger mechanic would break if a challenger’s faction gets destroyed. AI basically is like “fuck fronts” yoloing into the middle of your territory to sack a couple settlements before dying. Instead of Total War Troy it’s more like Total War Greece because it’s almost always Troy invading Greece instead of the other way around. You can also cheese every siege battle with Hydra units and poison but that’s more user focused so it doesn’t matter too much. If you check the forums there’s probably a lot more bugs/frustrations but these are the one’s I’ve experienced.
There are some positives but if it had like 2 more patches to fix the bugs it would be great. AI probably can’t be fixed.
@@1219nan ah, I haven't played since February because of hand issues, good to know.
I have occasionally enjoyed your videos, but with so many Total War youtubers out there it's difficult to know who to subscribe to. After this video, I am now confident that your your rankings and opinions align 1-to-1 with mine. You have earned my sub, I look forward to binge watching your content when Warhammer 3 comes around!
BTW: I'd love to see a video of your most anticipated Warhammer 3 factions once the Slaanesh faction info is released. I'm personally going for Cathay for the first playthrough due to them being a simpler introduction before doing crazier factions like Nurgle or the Ogre Kingdoms, but I'd love to hear your choices too!
I agree about FOTS, I get the feeling it's a little unappreciated but I always really liked it and added much needed diversity and excitement to Shogun 2. The best way to make an alternate campaign expansion. Compare to say Rome Alexander which I think was a lot weaker and nowhere near as replayable as the original or Barbarian Invasion.
"Hold the line levy, the clan will remember your names." *Naval bombardment.*
I've returned to Rome recently, purchasing the non-remastered version. It still is amazing and beautiful (in a way), but it definitely did not age well. How camera works is the exact opposite of intuitive, coming back to it from newer Total War games is jarring just because of that. Pathing issues, crashes, glacial pace with which the units walk, all this is rough to get used to after the years of improvements the series had made. Still love it, but I find playing it difficult. Does the remaster make the camera on the battle screen work more like it does nowadays, I wonder?...
Yes. Remaster is an 100% improvement.
Controls and visuals are such an improvement.
It brings a lot of QoL settings and features.
After you play it you wont come back to the non-remasterd version lol
@@Jose-sl9gh but maaann those pc requirements T_T ...
Rome 2 has very good modding community, you can easily change fundamental behaviors from the AI or boost them with gold... makes the game very challenging when you start in some obscure province and soon have to face one of the major factions.
Love these tiermaker lists.
I bought ToB recently and I really enjoy it. It´s fun, I love the recruiting system especially. Sure I will not put hundreds of hours into it like into other TW games, because of its small scale and relatively repetitive gameplay, but I don´t mind paying the 10 euros I got it for at all. Certainly worth the discounted price.
yo i'm like 30 seconds in and I just gotta say I'm glad you made the point of doing the dual ratings. That was my immediate concern upon reading the title, since those are two very different situations to judge a game by
The top ten series has now finished its metamorphosis into tier list ❤️
Edit : I had to always edit the game files or use mods to fix the horrible campaign stutter on the steam version of rome tw as well
Strange I never had any issues even to this day as weirdly prefer it over the remaster.
the master of the tier lists!
I play medieval total war today, i think its an underrated total war game. I love the atmosphere and the music of that game and the fact that you give titles to your generals
Game crashes for me
What's your opinion of the building systems in the older games versus the newer games? Medieval 2 allowed you to build basically all buildings in a town or castle that were available, no build slots or anything like that, and while I know that that is theoretically worse game design, since choices are generally a good thing to force upon your players, the modern system just feels worse. Maybe that is because they streamlined it or executed it poorly, but the Medieval 2 settlement management feels a lot more satisfying than Warhammer's.
And then there's the recruitment system, I really adore the fact that units need to return to settlements that can recruit them to replenish, it makes me feel like I'm assembling and reinforcing an army more than just waiting for 2-5 turns for it to replenish. I love Warhammer 2, but its campaign side feels a lot weaker than Medieval 2's.
The old building system had meaningful choices you had to make. Do you build a trading port in a north-sea city or 3 grain markets in your interior towns? You almost never have enough money to develop every settlement at the same time, so you had to make priorities which upgrade gave you the highest return of investment.
The new system on the other hand gives you fewer choices in my opinion. Build 1 recruitment province and then spam the same template of growth --> fortification --> economy in every other province until the end of the game.
There's a big difference between choice because of too many opportunities, like Medieval 2, and too few like Warhammer 2. I've played a lot more of warhammer 2, but the city development is trash. Maybe unlimited buildings is too much, but then a hybrid with growth per city kinda like hordes or something could do well, with capitals intrinsically growing faster and able to reach further. The building slot system is really boring.
I really like the landmarks and resource system of Warhammer but yes, the old Medieval 2 system is better for me because all cities are important and you can really get into the nitty gritty of empire management.
My fav part of the old recruitment is how you can recruit one elite unit and some chaff in your capital then march them off to the frontline as reinforcements. Also, every battle matters because auto replenishment is not a thing. Of course, the AI breaks with this system because they just spam hundreds of armies without generals that can consist from anywhere between 2 to 20 random units in it. Makes things annoying in the end game.
Prediction:
Warhammer II is S-Tier.
No
@@user-nl6qk8lj4o yes
I appreciate and respect the fact that you made 2 separate lists for when they came out and how they hold up today....Cuz even still today ppl worship the OG Rome Total War like its a holy script and even if I love it to death ill admit there it can't hold up to some of the newer games in the series
Attila had the most dynamic sieges in the series by far, optimization held it back, and units needed a bit more diversity but nothing has come close
I think Attila is the only TW where the defender will sally out to attack your artillery if player left it undefended
Dynamic? Thrones has the best sieges out of all total wars
@@Kublaioi so is ToB a good game? I've had it for a long time, but I still haven't played it properly. Just 18 turns of campaign and that's it. 2 days ago I downloaded it again and I'm going to give it a chance
@@arsduk Yeah it is, go on very hard difficulty with Sudreyar (if you like vikings) or Mierce (if you like English factions), you can try West Seaxe too but it generally gets easy after you conquer a bit
@@Kublaioi Already started with Circenn, trying to make Scotland great again :D
3k really was blueballing, never got to the actual three kingdoms era in the dlc timeline and then when everyone was expecting a reveal of the Chibi (probably the most important that lead to the three kingdoms a few years later) they just drop the support for the game. Also left so many bugs introduced in the dlc (just look at the unoffical patch on the workshop)
EDIT add missing part of sentence
I loved the naval combat in Empire, one of my favorite campaigns in non-WH total war games was taking over the world on the back of the mighty Prussian navy!
I had a forgettable experience with Napoleon and Empire but Shogun 2 is that game I still think about from time to time, and I launch a campaign once a year. I bought an entire new pc to play it in 2011. Which is funny, because I knew almost nothing about old Japan and was in love with 17-19th Europe.
And I'm always surprised for how long I stick to these nostalgia campaigns. It's the TW game that hooked me to the series, I played a Rome 2 macedonian campaign after that when I was in a very remote place with not much to do, but basically I jumped straight from Shogun 2 to WH2, after discovering your channel.
I've been one of those guys who watch your streams without owning the game, for quite a while.
You're now hyping me to play Fall of the Samurai. I got it on steam sales once and never touched it x)
Had no idea this is something I needed for my day but glad I got it 😅
My first total war was Rome 2 and I was addicted to it, I was enjoying every single thing, even I was losing the battle I was still immersed and love the close ups with the camera. I was surprised rome 2 was bad for everyone, I guess previous total wars set the bar too high on Rome 2
I remember buying Shogun it was amazing, I was still finding new features when I gave up to move to newer total war games.
The little video clips with agent actions were terribly funny. :)
@@CallioNyx Yeah they were, I guess with the amount of variety in Total Warhammer in terms of races and agents that wouldn't be possible anymore but they were great.
Bought Shogun back in 2000 and loved it to bits. Best part was the throne room.
I love that you could click the wise old retainer for haikus and poems.
I'll always remember this one:
"The water is a mirror
I cannot see the bottom,
yet I feel ashamed
for the bottom can see me clearly."
Deep.
And the emissaries...
"Buddha's compassion gooo with you."
Ah, the memories. :)
I didn't know you could do that😮
I played Empire just the other day and it is more of a C tier game now. The game still has the bug where it tanks your frame rates if part of a unit gets trapped on the walls but other than that its not that buggy any more.
The Rome 2 rating surprised me, ngl. To this day it is by far my favorite total war game. The 1100 AD mod is amazing. I always felt like the combat was satisfying and everything had its place without anything feeling OP/ broken or useless and everything had a counter. Elephants? Pikes or javelins. Pikemen? Ranged units. Cavalry charges where satisfying and powerful when done right but you couldn't smashing through a braced infantry unit from the front. The economy was simple but effective. Idk man, its still the most fun I've had with a total war game and I play it all the time.
yeah i've also played rome 2 rigth from launch. pretty suprised he said the building & politics system were garbage. they were the features i enjoyed the most! building was way diversified compared to rome 1 & med 2. politics added much needed depth to your faction. i also feel like balance-wise it was in a right spot. not like attila. whenever i play attila i feel like cav is utterly useless and falls over at the slightest touch of missiles. nothing like it was in rome 2 where cav could actually take out a missile unit without losing it's battle potential. in my opinion it deserves a higher status especially on the 2021 list.
same
I loved the original medieval total war so much. And the music was so good. 😁 I had a soft spot for trying to save the byzantine empire lol
I remember selling the Original Shogun at Software Today in the late 90's early 2000s. Remember, a Pentium 3, 500Mhz was cutting edge technology with a 16MB videocard. Going from things like command and conquer to have literally thousands of troops on the battlefield at once was totally revolutionary. I still have my old copy with the box lol - and paid $99AUD for it too!
Thank you for this video, Legend.
I've been curious about your thoughts on these titles (and how you feel about them now) since you did the Top-5 videos back in the day
(:
Your Rome Total War experience mirrors my Warhammer 2 experience.
ahahha
If Medieval 2 doesn't end up in S tier for both lists, I'll eat my socks
Waiting for a video of you eating your socks
This may have been an ill-advised comment
@@hairybullocks507 I want proof, show me proof
My father was playing Rome Total War in the hospital the day I was born. I turn 18 in October and I still play it every once in a while.
4:15 Medieval added proper sieges. In shogun the gate was always open. In medieval you had to break open the gate or use siege equipment to tear down the walls.
Rome 1 is the pinnacle in a a lot of ways. They've never caught up to the impact or hype they had then for a historic title.
Shogun Total War was Amazing when it released, I played it so much I ruined the CDs and had to buy a second game. The CDs would spin while you played the game, funny to think today. What an great game to start off the Total War library!
wow realy? i tried Shogun the first time in 2016 and it was so bad and ugly (in comparison to Rome2, Medieval 2 which i loved) that i only played it for 6 minutes and than never touched it till today. i hated this game so much that i didnt even wanted to try Shogun2 for many years but a few months ago a friend told me to get Shogun 2 and now i think Shogun 2 is a very good Total War game
I remember trying to find the CD for shogun in game, about a year after it came out. Makes me feels so old, but it was such a good game at the time.
same
@@Managarm1999 2016 was very late for Shogun. It does not hold up apart from the love poured into making it. The soundtrack of course also still holds up.
@@Managarm1999 Shogun 2 almost perfect tw game. There are 2 major issues. Most frustrating thing is diplomacy. Any faction without any reason can declair war on you and when you at war with couple factions the whole fckng map declair war on you (even your allies) and brings 2-3 full stacks to you. Very annoying shit.
Second issue as Legend says is almost no difference between factions.
My first interaction with total war was with shogun. I saw the game in some gaming magazine and it blew my mind. As a kid I looked at the screen shots and read the article in awe. I convinced my parents to get it for me and the proceeded to save scum ninja assassinations on enemy faction leaders with ridiculously low odds.
20:45 man this bit had me cracking up, love your dry humor
You know, you're a proper Legend buff, when you watch a 40min video of him, ranking all Total War Games, while you've already got and played every single one of them.
WE NEED MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your review of empire is literally my experience word for word
Also happy to see Shogun 2 in A tier for current year. I got into Total War just last year because I apparently already owned Shogun 2 on steam and figured I'd give it a shot. Sengoku era Japan definitely helped get more interest out of me but it was a great first place to start before getting into Warhammer 2 afterwards.
Despite me not liking/playing 3K I do think it probably deserves A-tier, I was glad to see Legend thought so too.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the game, it was for me also a fresh setting for me to explore. And the diplomacy overhaul alone was enough for me to consider it a top tier Total War. But sadly playing battles feels shit. Not necessarily the animations or the AI, but I don't like the 3 sub-commander idea. If it weren't for that I would probably put it as S-tier.
Medieval 2 was the first TW I played (years after it came out) because it was the newest TW that could run on my PC at the time. Will always hold a special place in my heart.
Man, I love Empire so much. It certainly has issues but it's ambitious and quite expansive. The AI suffers a bit but it introduced some cool empire management that feels more streamlined.
Rome Total War was a complete revelation foe me as a teen. At the time rts games to me were red alert and those types of games. So the idea of these grand battles blew me away. I remember going to Walmart and looking at the box and just hoping ine day i could play it. Then i got a laptop for school, and the first thing i did was biy Rome. The hours i spent on that game is mind boggling.
Oh man TW Attila, its mechanics, its bordeline absurd difficulty at the end, its battles, factions, AI cheats... it makes me want to shoot myself in the foot and I love it.
Although I thought you'd mention its mods a bit, specially MK 1212AD and Ancient Kingdoms. I know some people who bought the game only for these mods and weren't dissapointed.
Ironically Rome 2 was the first i ever played a few years after it launched and I loved it. It was one of my first "grand- strategy" games I ever played. and it got me into the the rest of them. I actually enjoy that one much more then I liked Atillia.
I didn't get Rome 2 till it was updated completely and loved it I played the hell out of it. With DEI I loved it even more.
Thank you very much! Great video!
Fun fact: there was a british game show that used a beta version of Rome Total War before it was even released called Time Commander. Im pretty sure every episode is on youtube the videos are a bit crusty if i recall but still watchable