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Medieval II: Total War

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Medieval II: Total War
Medieval II: Total War cover
Developers
Creative Assembly
Creative Assembly International
macOS (OS X) Feral Interactive
Linux Feral Interactive
Publishers
Sega
OS X, Linux Feral Interactive
Release dates
Windows November 11, 2006
macOS (OS X) January 14, 2016
Linux January 14, 2016
Reception
Metacritic 88
IGDB 90
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time, Turn-based
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Free-roaming camera
Controls Menu-based, Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS, TBS
Themes Medieval, Historical
Series Total War
Medieval II: Total War on HowLongToBeat
Medieval II: Total War on IGDB
Medieval II: Total War guide on StrategyWiki
Medieval II: Total War on MobyGames
Medieval II: Total War on Wikipedia
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Rome: Total War 2004
Medieval II: Total War 2006
Empire: Total War 2009
Napoleon: Total War 2010
Total War: Shogun 2 2011
Total War: Shogun 2 - Fall of the Samurai 2012
Total War Battles: Shogun 2012
Total War: Rome II 2013
Total War: Attila 2015
Total War Battles: Kingdom 2015
Total War: Warhammer (series)
Total War: Arena Cancelled
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia 2018
Total War: Three Kingdoms 2019
A Total War Saga: Troy 2020
Total War: Rome Remastered 2021
Total War: Pharaoh 2023

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Medieval II: Total War is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view and free-roaming camera RTS and TBS game in the Total War series.

General information

Official forums
Total War Center - A large fan site for the series with an active modding community
Collection of bug fixes for many of the game's issues
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SafeDisc DRM[Note 1] for the base game, SecuROM DRM for Kingdoms.
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Windows
Developer website
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Collection bundle including all the DLC.
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Definitive Edition.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Definitive Edition.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Mac App Store
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Includes expansion.
macOS (OS X)
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Definitive Edition.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
All Linux versions require Steam DRM.
All product keys activate on Steam.[3]
Free demo versions are available from Archive.org: base game, Gold Edition.

Version differences

The Gold (retail) and Definitive (Steam, as of 20 November 2018) Editions include the base game and the Kingdoms expansion pack.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Kingdoms Comes bundled with the Gold and Definitive Editions.
Windows

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\medieval2.preference.cfg[Note 2]
macOS (OS X)
Linux $XDG_DATA_HOME/feral-interactive/Medieval II Total War/
This game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\saves[Note 2]
macOS (OS X)
Linux $XDG_DATA_HOME/feral-interactive/Medieval II Total War/VFS/Local/saves

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
UI suffers severe stretching.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
In the medieval2.preference.cfg file, change the line: windowed=true
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Edit medieval2.preference.cfg and add the line borderless_window=true
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Audio

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Master, speech, effects and music.
Surround sound
5.1[4] and 7.1[5]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
EAX 2, 3 and 4[6]
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
Czech
French
German
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Japanese release.
Polish
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
Hot seat, Versus
Native in Kingdoms expansion; use Retrofit Mod for original campaigns.
LAN play
8 Versus
Online play
8 Versus
The official GameSpy service is offline; the Steam version was updated to use Steamworks.[3] Mac App Store players can only play with other Mac App Store users.[7]

Issues fixed

Retail base game does not work

The retail version of the base game does not work on Windows Vista and later due to SafeDisc DRM support being discontinued.[8]
Activate the serial key on Steam[3]
Use Kingdoms expansion[8]

The retail Kingdoms expansion is still compatible due to using SecuROM DRM instead. Use the Bare Geomod to play Medieval II's Grand Campaign within Kingdoms.

Restart the SafeDisc service (Windows 8.1 and earlier)[9]
See SafeDisc article.

Reinforcements delayed

Remove reinforcement limit[10]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open medieval.prefences.cfg.
  3. Change unlimited_men_on_battlefield = 0 to unlimited_men_on_battlefield = 1

Notes

Only applies to reinforcements delayed claimed due to needing to upgrade the system. This does not affect reinforcements being delayed through random chance (as part of intended game logic), nor does it apply to reinforcements blocked because of insufficient graphics card memory.

Diplomacy bug

Because of a missing semicolon in the game files, the AI hates the human player more if peacefully occupying something than if sacking it. See here or use the Bare Geomod for a fix. This will make diplomacy more viable and decrease the frequency of wars.[11][12]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Metal support
[13]
Shader Model support 1.0
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Mods

Bare Geomod

Includes a variety of bug fixes and unlocks all factions.

Stainless Steel

A combination of bug fixes, many small mods, better AI and AI armies, more provinces, graphical improvements and many other campaign and battle map changes.

Third Age - Total War

A total conversion mod that brings the game to the world of Middle-earth during the Third Age. Includes both a standard campaign mode and a Fellowship of the Ring campaign that follows the events of the books.

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Miles Sound System 6.6g[14]
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer GameSpy, Steamworks

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000 SP4
Processor (CPU) Intel Celeron 1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 11 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4400
ATI Radeon 9800
128 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9 compatible
Shader model 1.0 support
Sound (audio device) 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU) 1.8 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 32 GB
Video card (GPU) 256 MB of VRAM
Intel HD Graphics 4000/5000 require 8GB of RAM.
Linux
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) Ubuntu 14.04, SteamOS 2.0
Processor (CPU) 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM) 4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 18 GB
Video card (GPU) 512 MB of VRAM
Intel HD Graphics 4000/5000 require 8GB of RAM.
AMD graphics cards are not officially supported on SteamOS.
Nvidia GeForce 600 series and newer require driver version 352.55, AMD Radeon R7/R9 300 series and Intel Iris Pro Graphics require Mesa 11.2 driver.


Notes

  1. SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. 2.0 2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References