Creative Assembly has announced a new real time battle game – a sequel to their immensely popular Medieval: Total War.

Medieval II will have 21 factions, over 250 units, and an extended map to allow the player to do battle against the large American empires of the Aztecs and Inca. In an adaptation of the role of the Senate in Rome, the new game will have the Pope make demands of his Christian followers.

It looks like princesses and priests are back, which is OK so long as they don’t have as many pointless civilian units as the original Medieval did. Inquistors, bishops, princesses, spies, emissaries – many necessary for very basic functions – contributed to the long and annoying end game.

New combat animations and better lighting are promised, but I’m not sure to what end. Rome looks great already and I’m not sure that Medieval needed more graphical gewgaws, especially if that means that I will need to upgrade my computer again.

IGN has some screenshots but no release date; late 2007 seems like a safe bet.

I liked Medieval but never loved it the way I do Rome. The battles were great – they always are – but the campaign game got very frustrating as the number of armies and civilian units exploded and the AI unfailingly predicted what your next move would be. Putting the design improvements from Rome into a Middle Ages setting could make this the historical strategy game to beat in the next year.