Historical Inaccuracies in Medieval II

Various criticisms about historical inaccuracies have been made about Medieval 2: Total War. Whilst the game is obviously designed around a historical setting, some compromises may have been made to balance good game play versus total historical realism.

In some cases the reasons why the game would not be designed for total historic accuracy can be easily imagined, for example:

• The name "Budapest" is used for one city when in fact the settlement there was three separate cities (Buda, Óbuda and Pest) until quite recently, (see Wikipedia article on Budapest). However, three separate cities would not fit well on the map in terms of game play and Budapest is likely to be the name most players would be familiar with.
• Spain did not own Toledo until 1088. Giving it to the Moors would've made Spain incredibly weak early in the campaign.
• Each campaign turn is two in-game years, but the characters in the campaign do not age at the same rate. If they did age two years every turn, however, the characters would die much earlier, and may lead to the extinction of the faction due to lack of heirs.

Mods Aimed at Improved Historical Accuracy

As with Rome: Total War the modding community has produced or is in the process of producing many modifications designed to enhance the historical accuracy of the game in some way.

Released mods that deal with specific aspects are:

• Character Names Project - which gives more authentic period names (with proper spellings and accents, etc.)

• Xenophonia - Replaces several factions' speech with their native languages, making them speak e.g. German, French or Italian instead of broken English.

(more mods and the aspects they deal with should be entered here)