After all these years, I think Medieval 2 is still the best total war game out there. Sure, Attila is harder, Warhammer is flashier, and Rome 2... exists? But Medieval 2 is still my favorite. On the surface, it's just a battle simulator with a map, but digging deeper reveals more complexity than expected. Sure the AI isn't the greatest, and general's bodyguard is borderline broken, and there's that two-handed glitch, (and diplomacy is sorta messed up), but I still enjoy the game every time I pick it up. Plus, there's a sizable catalog of mods. Everything from stainless steel, which fixes and adds many features, to Santa's Invasion, which changes the Danes into the North Pole (my personal favorite, come at me), to total overhaul mods like Third Age, which turns Medieval 2 into a LotR game. And even if you get bored of all that, there's still the expansion, Kingdoms, which adds 4(?) campaigns at a very cheap price compared to other CA titles.
This game doesn't feel like an odd cacophony of conflicting and unpolished features, and the expansions don't feel like they were designed by penny-pinching cheapskates (go look at Attila's dlc, for example). It feels like a game.

After all these years, I think Medieval 2 is still the best total war game out there. Sure, Attila is harder, Warhammer is flashier, and Rome 2... exists? But Medieval 2 is still my favorite. On the surface, it's just a battle simulator with a map, but digging deeper reveals more complexity than expected. Sure the AI isn't the greatest, and general's bodyguard is borderline broken, and there's that two-handed glitch, (and diplomacy is sorta messed up), but I still enjoy the game every time I pick it up. Plus, there's a sizable catalog of mods. Everything from stainless steel, which fixes and adds many features, to Santa's Invasion, which changes the Danes into the North Pole (my personal favorite, come at me), to total overhaul mods like Third Age, which turns Medieval 2 into a LotR game. And even if you get bored of all that, there's still the expansion, Kingdoms, which adds 4(?) campaigns at a very cheap price compared to other CA titles. This game doesn't feel like an odd cacophony of conflicting and unpolished features, and the expansions don't feel like they were designed by penny-pinching cheapskates (go look at Attila's dlc, for example). It feels like a game.