Rome: Total War (impressive screenshots!)

[A Black Falcon]

OB1... read more closely. The first game in the series was Shogun: Total War... :)

Set in the 1600s, I think. When there was that long period of civil wars. I'm sure I've mentioned the game here before... it did come out in 2000.

Of course, that one was simpler -- graphics weren't as good, for one, and sieges weren't that great. Shogun has no siege weapons in the game, or any way to go over or destroy walls of castles, so sieges were just 'attack the gates and lose lots of guys'... it was usually better to just starve out castles. Also, the game only has one battle map per map zone, while Medieval has many (randomly generated?) ones and Rome, the article says, has 10,000 historically-accurate ones.

Oh, the series's official site is http://www.totalwar.com ...

Oh... and while the Japanese middleages period is intresting, I like the European Middle Ages more... I've always liked history, and the (european) middle ages have always been one of my favorite periods.