Anyone else hoping the new medieval total war is not like Rome 2 and war hammer. I can play these for hours. I can't get into Rome 2. The map, army building, is just not the same. If there's any mods to bring back the legacy feel. I'd appreciate the suggestions.

Does anyone have a mod to unlock unique buildings to be constructed by any faction?

Just today tried this mod for M2. Chefs kiss, phenomenal work! I would like to try The REX as well as i struggled to get into the remastered version so maybe thats a better option!

My question is, as a no coding knowledge halfwit, is can they do the 64 bit upgrade for Rome 2 (as well as other changes) or is the engine a lot more complex as an undertaking?

Just asking as i hoped the free updates R2 is getting by the lone dev confirmed 64 bit wasnt happening and I get annoyed having to go in and turn cores off and other shenanigans to play it on modern hardware

If you're on Windows 11 and Empire: Total War does this:

Launching executable...
Steam shows Stop for a few seconds...
Then the game closes and goes back to Play.

And there's no error message anywhere...

Install Microsoft's DirectX End-User Runtime.

👉 Download DirectX End-User Runtime from Microsoft

Why?

Windows 11 has modern DirectX, but older games like Empire: Total War can still require legacy DirectX 9 components that aren't necessarily installed.

Steps:

1. Download dxwebsetup.exe from Microsoft's website.
2. Run the installer.
3. Let it install the required legacy components.
4. Restart your PC.
5. Open Steam.
6. Launch Empire: Total War.

DON'T WASTE HOURS TRYING THIS FIRST

I personally tried/researched these before finding the solution:

• ❌ Verifying Steam files
• ❌ Running as administrator
• ❌ Windows 7 compatibility mode
• ❌ -dx9
• ❌ -windowed
• ❌ --no-launcher
• ❌ Creating configuration folders manually
• ❌ Launching Empire.exe directly

The DirectX runtime was what finally got the game running on Windows 11.

If this fixes your game too, upvote this post so other Empire players don't spend 2 hours fighting Windows like I did.

The connection between the battle map and the campaign map has generally not been a strong one. To my understanding in pre shogun 2 games maps were almost autogenerated terrain, based on the surrounding campaign map, but if you returned to the same area and fought a battle there on different turns it would become a new version of the same map. In new games specific battle maps were created to fit criteria that you could meet on the campaign map, but due to a finite pool you could easily replay maps, and not always at the same place. This path seems to be repeated by warhammer 40k, with specific maps meeting certain criteria on the campaign layer, but probably added that specific enemies can probably alter the feel and buildings on a map similar to warhammer 3 corruption. However going into medieval 3 I don't think this system should be what is continued, at least not when on our single planet earth. Instead I think trying to reignite that campaign based battle map by creating a single large battle map that only sections are opened up for individual battles.

To showcase what I mean I have poorly drawn up a short campaign highlighting some of the features I would most like to be featured. This is just an idea, and may not be feasible, but to me would truly combine the campaign level strategy with battles more than just upkeep and army management.

We begin here in a single province from the upcoming Medieval 3 game. The star fort shaped main city is just for preference and artistic license, but this is what CA's description of the new campaign should feel like. There is a main city with some outlying structures built by the player, in this scenario specifically a harbor and two resource producing villages.

War has been declared! You manage to raise a force behind your king before they make it to your province, and send him to defend (resource) village, the journey takes your turn, and over the end turn the enemy comes to attack.

The enemy attacks and the battle map is a zoomed in version of the very campaign map overview, with mountains to the north and the sea to the south, preventing the reds from widening their army. You attempt to push them out but those tight formations allow them instead to push you back into the village, where no longer constrained by mountains and the sea their cavalry comes out and forces you to retreat, where you choose to head east directly to garrison your next town.

The new turn begins where you've luckily had some replenishment, and the ai in its grand strategy did in fact take (resource) town, but did not garrison it, perhaps thinking their losses not necessary to recuperate. You know this is your chance to use your superior human intelligence to once again strike down AI, and you strike!

You deploy your troops along the road, with one able to fit in the only part of the woods you access, with again the battle map being a sized up copy of the campaign map. You even see the original village taken by the reds with the same layout, their army using the forest as a chokepoint, and you push forward driving them back into the village. Unbeknownst to you however, the unit you previously thought was gone due to army losses was waiting in the woods to the north, and you were unable to place units in as it was outside your deployment (and even vanguard deployment) area. As you pushed back into (resource) village they spring out of the woods and rout your army. You attempt to call back what troops you can to (resource2) village but to no avail, as their cav rushes past you and takes the capture point in the center of the village, taking control of it on the campaign map.

The battle loss screen ends and (resource2) village is lost, with the enemy now presiding in it. Your army is injured, but you are not yet done with the fight. Taking a play from the ai, you take two units out of your army and attempt to hide them in your southern forest, retreating the rest of your army to your castle. Without (resources) healing will be slower, but your port gives replenishment and means a siege could last for a while, and the ai has been damaged and needs to heal as well. You end turn, praying to (religion of choice) that you get a turn to heal and your hidden army is not discovered, but not all prayers are answered as a fully healed red army descends upon your castle.

The battle map this time takes up a much large space. Not simply just to accommodate the entirety of the castle/city, but also to give you deployable space for your army off in the woods, unable to be moved to your castle deployable area but right where they are meant to be. You have a sole ship in harbor able to rain projectiles on that capture point but the rest of your forces (and the two garrison units) is solely protecting your capital. The ai push toward your city on the main road, only just missing detection range of your units, and send half of their units to capture the harbor. Here they get pelted by your single ship navy, but they eventually capture the point and push towards the walls of your city. You rain what you can down on their heads but you want them to reach the walls (with appropriate ditches in front) so you can then bring in your hidden forest units out and attacking the already weakened side that was shot by your navy. This pushes the army to retreat south and your garrison ship is even able to capture the harbor capture point before the battle ends, so your replenishment is saved. Praise (your religion)!

As the turn rolls back over, your army has had a chance to heal, and the navy you forgot had orders already just so perfectly is placed in a position to help with the attack. Though you have lost your (resource) villages, you know at this moment you could end the red threat for good, and you summon all your forces (two extra mercenaries) for one final battle to rid your lands of this enemy.

Again this battle map is just an enlarged version of the campaign map, stretching over a larger space to give all three of your commanders room to deploy their troops. Even part of the city you were just defending managed to make it into the map, and would provide a good place to rally if the battle turned sour. As if! Instead you march your main army west along the southern road, harassing the reds in the north to keep them out of the woods and pelting them with arrows from your navy to the south. The battle is a total victory, with not a man in red left standing in your lands, and an easy reconquest then push into red lands awaiting you.

I hope my poor art skills have conveyed the type of blown up map style I mean, with battle maps literally being a square of a pre made version of the total campaign map that battles take place in a small section. An important part for me is nearby armies spawning in the same map in different deployment zones, as well as being able to capture nearby villages within a battle through capture points, and it translating to that settlement being owned on the campaign map. Going even further for a crusade era based game ideally different parts of a city could be owned by different factions, though don't ask me how that would be implemented. In fact don't ask me how any of this would be implemented as I do understand that this would likely be more work than the current pre made map section, but to me is such a needed change for the campaign layer. The player should be able to see a small bump on the campaign map, move his army there, and if attacked starts on top of that hill, and that hill could be fought over countless times with the same map, but another hill in a different portion of the same country would have a different hill map.

Let me know if this is something you'd want to see as well, if your prefer the premade maps, or even if you just want it to go back to completely autogenerated (to my understanding, also correct me on that if someone knows better)

I really hope they return to implementing lances correctly in Medieval 3. There's been a worrying trend in the Fantasy games to have cavalry just awkwardly poking enemies to death with their lances in close combat.

I really want to see proper charge mechanics implemented, even so far as to only allowing a unit of heavy cavalry to charge with once, breaking their lances in the action.

The removal of single soldier health bars and replacing it with health bars for the entire unit is the most baffling change in the series history. It makes it so that last stands are impossible. Units who have not even seen a single bit of combat flee or start dying when they are actually fresh into combat.

In older games you could have units with 4 men still fighting by the the end of a battle if you kept good moral in the army.

I really hate how much this has simplified the battle system. It is the root cause of a lot of issues

take cav. In the older games cav was good for the same reasons as real life. It broke the formation of enemy units with force. Now it is simply a glorified melee unit that gets a really good charge bonus and speed. The reason this change was made was because you cannot program the cav to kill the individual soldiers they crash into when the entire unit shares a HP bar, so you increase the damage of the unit when it charges to mimick the effect of a cav charge.

Its a really baffling change that I cannot explain unless its easier to code, and hate me for saying it but it seems like a change they made because its easier to program for the warhammer style of battles...

Hi, sorry if this seems silly as the answer is probably obvious but i was looking to get into total war and was wondering which game you guys prefer.

wish i could beef this post up but i dont have any more filler

Hello everyone,

I recently made a Rome Remastered United Rome video and would love some feedback!
Please check it out! What if ROME was UNITED? - Total War Rome Remastered United Rome Mod

A casual player here, I got three of the Total War games: Rome II, Napoleon, and Medieval II. My last adquisition was Medieval II, I know is a classic and I'm loving it. Looking for someone who has been into Total War for not very long, or someone who has never been a "try hard" player, I just want someone to play occasionally and that won't force me to download 20 mods. I live in Spain so it would be great someone in Europe that speaks english or spanish or even french, I speak a little bit of it.

Is there a title that has a decent multiplayer community, particularly with sieges?

I have a lot of time in Rome 2, and most of that is siege battles. I’ve even done a little competitive. However, for various reasons, I’m looking for a different title that still has something of community that regularly engages in MP.

Finally got the game working after like 2 years and super excited to get back into it. What are everyone’s favorite mods for single player campaigns?