Also one of my top five all time PC games. But I don't see a springboard to anything new yet. I wish I did.
On further reflection, I'm inclined to agree with you. CA's time & attention is going to be fully occupied with the release of Immortal Empires and the Champions of Chaos DLC for the immediate foreseeable future. That alone pretty much precludes any announcements regarding upcoming games/projects, at least anytime soon.
I don't rule out the possibility of them announcing Medieval 2 Remastered at *some* point in the not-too-distant future (and I'm certain they'll announce that long before they'd ever announce Medieval 3 - heh). Realistically, though, I doubt we'll see any sort of new game being mentioned until next year.
I’m no tactical genius so it can’t be just me - apart from medieval I’ve never lost a game of TW - I love the franchise but boredom in the map and the game length requirements have defeated me long before the enemy
But medieval did kick my ass and I’m wondering if that’s because it was before the introduction of castles and siege battles - each battle was straight up open field warfare and there was nothing more nail biting than hoping your mercenary Nubian spearmen would hold against the incoming charge
MTW/VI definitely has castle/siege battles. It was actually the first Total War title to introduce them to the series, and one of the major new features touted when the game was being previewed in the media.
The difference is that the AI in MTW was generally much better than in most subsequent games, a fact that I myself occasionally forget whenever I return to it. (I'm not exactly a military genius either, and can still lose in this game.) The combat AI, in particular, is superior to most -- it understands the importance of flanking attacks (and guarding against them), it can employ the "appear weak" defense, and even pull off the occasional feigned retreat.
On the strategic/campaign side of the game, the AI was not as brilliant. However, it was sometimes still smart enough to recognize that it couldn't win the battle it was facing, and that therefore abandoning the province and avoiding battle entirely was the better option -- at least that way, the AI didn't needlessly sacrifice its troops. I suspect that this behavior indirectly contributed towards MTW having a decent number of field battles (since they weren't always/immediately retreating to the capital/castle), unlike many of the later games.
It says min requirements are Vista or Win7? I could swear I played the game on a Dell 4300 with WinME when it first came out, though it's possible I'd just upgraded to XP. IIRC, Vista didn't come out till 2007. Was the version on Steam remastered for later OSs?
The original game was released to be compatible with Windows 98/2000/ME/XP. (I had XP on my computer at the time MTW was released, and it was able to run the game with no problems.) So yes, I imagine the Vista/Win7 requirements must be for the Steam version.
To be honest, I don't know that the game was ever "remastered" for newer OS's. I know of a lot of folks have struggled to get the game to play on their PC's, especially with Windows 10. I've been fortunate enough to not have had that problem, including on my new machine (which has Windows 11), but not everyone has been as lucky.
[knocks on wood] I won Long Campaigns as Spain and HRE, and short ones as France and England, remember you had to win a short campaign in order to unlock all the factions? 
Loved them all.... except for the Inquisitors. I hated them. 
The unlocking faction thing was in Medieval as well? I only remember that in the original Rome: TW.
I definitely remember winning some Medieval campaigns but not a lot of them. And I got my arse handed to me in MP playing as the Byzantines against LongBlade's Turks :/
Sir Slash is referring to Medieval 2. Both the short/long campaign victory conditions, and the unlocking of factions (gods, how I f*****g hated that), weren't a thing until Rome 1 and later.
