head to head

Medieval: Total War cover artvsPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door cover art

Medieval: Total WarvsPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Medieval: Total War leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).

EXECUTION3 /10READS2 /10VARIANCE3 /10OPTIMIZATION8 /10
Medieval: Total WarPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Axis by axis

Execution3 vs 3

Even - both lean on execution about the same.

Reads2 vs 2

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance3 vs 3

Even - both lean on variance about the same.

Optimization8 vs 7

Medieval: Total War leans harder on optimization: Campaign economy and battlefield doctrine are deeply learnable

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Medieval: Total War

full breakdown

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door