Medieval II: Total War

Medieval II: Total War is a strategy video game developed by the since-disbanded Australian branch of The Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 10 November 2006. Feral Interactive published versions of the game for macOS and Linux on 14 January 2016. It is the sequel to 2002's Medieval: Total War and the fourth title in the Total War series.

See also:

Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms

Game narration

• Storm clouds gather over Europe, mistrust and rivalries between realms threaten to break and flood the world in a tide of Total War.
  • General introduction, spoken by the monk

Loading screen quotations

• Kill them all, God will recognise his own.
  • Arnaud Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux

• Nothing is to be feared but fear.
  • Francis Bacon

• In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign. Secondly, a just cause. Thirdly, a rightful intention.
  • Thomas Aquinas

• The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Knights Tale

• Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.
  • Christopher Columbus

• War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
  • Erasmus

• Fortune favours the audacious.
  • Erasmus

• The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.
  • Erasmus

• If you do not leave this pasturage, Saladin will come and attack you here. And if you retreat from this attack the shame and reproach will be very great.
  • Gerard of Ridefort, letter written to King Guy

• The strength of God will enable us, a small but faithful band, to overcome the multitude of the faithless.
  • Robert Guiscard

• It is better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.
  • Italian proverb

• Do you know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled?
  • Pope Julius III

• A safe stronghold our God is still. A trusty shield and weapon.
  • Martin Luther

• Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.
  • Martin Luther

• Nothing good ever comes of violence.
  • Martin Luther

• War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.
  • Martin Luther

• Since love and fear can hardly coexist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• The princes who have done great things are the ones who have taken little account of their promises.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Men should either be treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injures ** for heavy ones they cannot.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• The prince must be a fox... to recognize the traps and a lion to frighten the wolves.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• The best fortress which a prince can possess is the affection of his people.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought... but war and its organisation and discipline.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Strike up the drum and march courageously.
  • Christopher Marlowe

• Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.
  • John Milton

• For what can war, but endless war, still breed?
  • John Milton

• Will no one revenge me of the injuries I have sustained from one turbulent priest?
  • Henry II, King of England

• Luck is the residue of design.
  • John Milton

• Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than War.
  • John Milton

• What does not destroy me, makes me strong.
  • John Milton

• If some among them are innocent, it is expedient that they should be assayed like gold in the furnace and purged by proper judicial examination.
  • Royal letter opening the enquiry into the Templar Knights

• He doth nothing but talk of his horse.
  • Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, i, 2

• All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.
  • Shakespeare, As You Like It, ii, 7

• I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways.
  • Shakespeare, As You Like It, v, 1

• Here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.
  • Shakespeare, King John, iii, 1

• Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
  • Shakespeare, Hamlet, iv, 2

• Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them.
  • Shakespeare, King John, iv, 7

• A man can die but once.
  • Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part:II. iii, 2

• Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
  • Shakespeare, King Richard III, v, 3

• A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
  • Shakespeare, King Richard III, v, 4

• The better part of valour is discretion.
  • Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part:I, v, 4

• To whom God will, there be the victory.
  • Shakespeare, King Henry the Sixth, Part:III, ii, 5

• A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.
  • Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, i, 1

• We are ready to try our fortunes To the last man.
  • Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part:II, iv, 2

• And many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.
  • Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part:III, ii, 1

• Upon his royal face there is no note how dread an army hath enrounded him;
  • Shakespeare, King Henry V, iv prologue

• There's daggers in men's smiles.
  • Shakespeare, Macbeth, II, 3

• It is better to be on hand with ten men than absent with ten thousand.
  • Tamerlane

• And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
  • Matthew, ch. XXIV, V.6

• Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
  • Psalm, CXLIV

• Inflict not on an enemy every injury in your power, for he may afterwards become your friend.
  • Moslih Eddin Saadi

• No one conquers who doesn't fight.
  • Gabriel Biel

• An emperor is subject to no one but God and justice.
  • Fredrick I, Barbarossa

• Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.
  • Niccoló Machiavelli

• Let the boy win his spurs.
  • Edward III, King of England, Battle of Crecy 1345

• We who are the rest of the people raised our heart and eyes to heaven crying for God to have compassion upon us, and to turn away from us the power of the French.
  • Thomas Elthem, Henry V's Chaplain at Agincourt

• There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
  • Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

• Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.
  • Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

• The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould. ...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
  • Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

• He who knows not how to dissimulate, can not reign.
  • Louis XI, King of France

• So many great nobles, things, administrations, so many high chieftains, so many brave nations, so many proud princes, and power so splendid; In a moment, a twinkling, all utterly ended.
  • Jacobus de Benedictus

• It is more honourable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
  • Petrarch

• He who defends everything defends nothing.
  • Fredrick II, Holy Roman Emperor

• I am the King of Rome, and above grammar.
  • Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

• When you see contention amongst your enemies, go and sit at ease with your friends; but when you see them of one mind, string your bow, and place stones upon the ramparts.
  • Moslih Eddin Saadi

• Disasters teach us humility.
  • Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury

• I have loved justice and hated inequity; and therefore I die in exile.
  • Pope Gregory VII, Tuscan Pope

• It is easy to be brave behind a castle wall.
  • Welsh proverb

• In a fight, anger is as good as courage.
  • Welsh proverb

• Undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven!
  • Urban II, Pope

• To carry on war, three things are necessary: money, money, and yet more money.
  • Gian Jacopo Trivulzio

• Fight to the last gasp.
  • Shakespeare, King Henry VI, part 1, i, 1

• I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked.
  • Shakespeare, Macbeth, v, 3

• Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
  • Shakespeare, King Henry V, iii, 1

• Let the world tremble as it senses all you are about to accomplish.
  • Luis Camóes, The Lusóads, canto 1:15

• Having done everything practical to make ready for so long a voyage, we prepared our souls to meet death, which is always on a sailor's horizon.
  • Luis Camóes, The Lusóads, canto 4:86

• I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
  • King Charles V King of France

• Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.
  • Alfonso X, the Wise, King of Castile

• Every man should arm himself as quickly as he could, and come to the King.
  • Charles Oman

• Let those who once fought against brothers and relatives now rightfully fight against barbarians.
  • Pope Urban II

• On both sides the troops were commanded by royal princes and they massacred each other mercilessly.
  • Matthew of Edessa

• The fighting was fierce and lasted for the greater part of a day; blood ran in rivers.
  • Matthew of Edessa

• Many of the common people in the armies were desolate, fearing future poverty; and so they sold their bows and the cowards returned to their own homes.
  • Fulcher of Chartres

• Let anyone who has zeal for God come with me! Let us fight for our brothers! Let Heaven's will be done!
  • Conrad III, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire

• God has aroused the spirit of kings and princes to root up from the earth the enemies of the Christian name.
  • Bernard of Clairvaux

• Whoever devotedly undertakes and performs this most holy journey...shall have the enjoyment of eternal reward from the repayer of all men.
  • Pope Eugenius III

• Surrender before you all die by the sword, for I do not wish you to perish.
  • Imad ad-Din Zanghi

• We shall not surrender.
  • Archbishop Hugh

• Come on soldiers! Guardians and agents of the supreme law! Here is a sacrifice of dogs ready for your swords!
  • Il-Ghazi

• At the first sound of the bugle, everyone should make haste to put on arms and armour.
  • Walter, Chancellor to Roger of Salerno

• Put an end to so great an evil and arrive at a peace settlement whatever the outcome, and whatever the conditions.
  • William of Tyre

• Take up the weapons of the glorious army for the salvation of many thousands.
  • Adela, wife of Stephen of Blois

• If they wish to fight today, let them come like men.
  • Bohemund

• They assembled from all sides, one after another, with arms and horses and all the panoply of war...
  • Anna Comnenus, The Alexiad

• Alas! How many noble and valiant knights we lost.
  • Fulcher of Chartres

• There is now no hope of escaping. If you fight you will conquer, but if you flee you will fall.
  • Fulcher of Chartres

• When he caught sight of their army, he was terrified and groaned in his mind.
  • Fulcher of Chartres

• The Frankish duke wept bitterly to see his soldiers massacred.
  • Matthew of Edessa

• He withdrew, himself wounded, and was compelled to return home inglorious, weeping ** he who had once vainly hoped for the glory of a triumph.
  • William of Apulia

• Therefore gird yourselves manfully and take up joyful arms for the name of Christ.
  • Bernard of Clairvaux

• Set out on pilgrimage and triumph gloriously over the infidels in the East.
  • Orderic Vitalis