Game WQ : Medieval II: Total War

Similar to previous titles of the Total War series, the game consists of two modes of play: battles and single-player campaign. Battles can be played in multiplayer, in user-defined scenarios, or in historical scenarios which simulate real battles such as the Battle of Arsuf or the Battle of Agincourt. Battles are also featured in the campaign.

The game starts with a tutorial based on the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. The player first takes the role of William Rufus, the son of the army commander William the Conqueror. His initial job is to provide a rearguard whilst the player learns the game controls. Then he joins to fight in the main battle. The player then concludes the tutorial with the conquest of Saxon England. At Hastings, King Harold is erroneously depicted with the Fleur-de-lis.

The campaign allows the player to assume control of a faction of the time period, and build a civilization, both economically and militarily in order to conquer other factions. Gameplay consists of controlling the faction's military, economic, and social systems in large campaign maps. During the player's turn, armies, fleets, and agents can be moved on the map. When an army engages another army, the player can choose to fight the battle personally in the battle mode, or automatically calculate the outcome.
The goal of the campaign depends on which type of campaign is played. The short campaign requires the player to defeat one or two enemy factions (for example, Holy Roman Empire must defeat its historical enemies Milan and Denmark) and control at least 15 settlements. The long campaign requires the player to control at least 45 territories and one or two significant cities, which are faction specific, such as Jerusalem, Granada, Rome or Constantinople.
Once the game is completed on any difficulty, the player may begin a new Grand Campaign as any faction with the exception of the Papal States, Mongols, Timurids, Aztecs (only encountered in the New World in the late period) or Rebels.

Each faction controls a number of settlements, and must conquer others in order to continue growing. Unlike previous Total War titles, there are two kinds of settlements, each with different advantages and disadvantages: cities and castles. Castles have better defensive capabilities and have access to a larger selection of professional soldiers, but generate less income, cannot train as many priests as cities, and have no access to higher civilian technologies. Cities generate much larger income and are technological centres of a faction, but are more difficult to defend and only have access to militia troops, which are generally inferior to those trained at castles except for a select few unique units. A small quantity of militia troops, stationed in the city where they have been trained, can be kept for free, without upkeep cost, otherwise required to be paid every turn for every army unit. Players may convert a settlement to a different type, although larger cities may not be converted into castles. Castles also need less population to be upgraded.
As in other Total War games, in each settlement the faction may construct a number of buildings, each with different functions, such as training troops, upgrading weapons and armour, expanding the economy, increasing the settlement's defences or strengthening religion. A new feature of Medieval II is the ability to build guild halls. A given settlement may only have a single guild hall, although there are several different types. The guild hall provides certain bonuses such as increased movement for troops, better weapons, or better agents; some even grant access to new units, such as the ahistoric yet effective unit of "Sherwood Archers" available to England upon construction and subsequent upgrade of a Woodsmens' Guild. Guild halls may also be later upgraded to a "Master Guild Hall", which may provide a larger bonus or even grant a bonus to all of the faction's settlements while still retaining a more notable bonus in the city the structure is built, and then possibly upgraded to the "Guild Headquarters", which provides the greatest bonuses, although each guild can have only one headquarters anywhere in the world at the given time, and each faction can only construct one Master Guild Hall of each guild in their empire. It is possible however, to capture a city with an existing Master Guild Hall of a certain type, and have two of one kind.

Each faction has a ruling family. Once male family members come of age at 16, they act as units that can be used to govern settlements and lead armies in battle as generals. Each character has attributes that determine their prowess in both. A character's actions can affect his attributes - for example, a general who routinely kills prisoners of war and exterminates captured settlements may see his "dread" increase, making him frightening to foes; a general who prefers to release prisoners and occupy settlements may instead increase his "chivalry", which makes his own troops much more brave. Characters also develop (or regress) by gathering traits and retinue members. Characters can take after (or rebel against) their parents, traits like alcoholism are self-perpetuating, inbreeding tends to strengthen when inherited, naivete and paranoia are mutually exclusive but both detrimental, etc. Some traits, mostly positive, are brought out by victories in battle: for example, generals can become increasingly scarred as time goes on, giving them more hitpoints, and generals who successfully complete a Crusade gain chivalry, command, and piety points. Others accumulate while governing a city: poorly managed backwaters tend to bring out the worst in generals, whereas advanced, central cities improve a general's traits. Owners of strong traits earn epithets, such as "the Brave," "the Just," "the Lewd" or "the Corrupt." These are decorative. A very important aspect of generals is their loyalty. If a general is disloyal, he may rebel, turning into the 'Rebels' faction and taking a part of the army at his command with him. The faction leader has an 'authority' rating instead of loyalty. Higher authority makes disloyal generals less likely to rebel.
Captains are leaders of armies that do not have a family member controlling them. They don't have any special attributes or retinue, but if killed in battle troop morale decreases, increasing the chance that the army will rout. If killed or assassinated, a new captain will instantly appear and take command of the army in question. If a captain is victorious in a particularly one sided battle or has shown excellent leadership, he may become 'Man of the Hour', and comes with an option to adopt him into the Royal Family. If adopted, he turns into a general and may gain attributes and retinue. If declined, he continues to be a generic captain. An army left with only a captain may rebel and join the rebel faction.
Each faction has a number of agents it may use to maintain order and influence other factions. These include the Priests/Imams, as well as princesses, diplomats, merchants, assassins and spies. Each agent has attributes that develop the more he is able to successfully be used. Princesses, for example, have a "Charm" attribute that governs their success in diplomacy and the likelihood that a proposal in marriage will be accepted. Spies and Assassins have a "Subterfuge" attribute which governs how likely they are to infiltrate enemy cities or find information about enemy armies. All agents except princesses are trained at settlements which contain the appropriate buildings - for example, Christian priests can be trained in any settlement with a church or chapel. Princesses are born into the player's ruling family, and become active as agents once they come of age at 16.
Diplomacy is performed by diplomats and princesses and functions much as in previous Total War games, mainly involving negotiating treaties such as cease fires, alliances and marriages and wars. The interface for negotiation has changed from previous games, however; a new system has been integrated to show the other faction's attitude toward the player's faction, intelligence estimates (such as how wealthy the faction is and what other factions they are at war with), as well as how fair the other faction feels the player's proposals are.
Inquisitors are controlled by The Papal States and are sent to the player's lands if you have fallen out of favour with the Pope. They can accuse any agent of heresy, and if they are found guilty, they will be executed. Generals, and even a player's King, may fall prey to these agents of God. To get rid of Inquisitors, you can gain favour with the Pope by building churches and converting the population, and avoid attacks on any more favourable Christian nations, or perhaps even attempt to assassinate them.