So i decided to go and get the damn game anyway.

How Pc Gamer rated this at 94% is beyond me. There is either some dodgy back-handers going on in the office, or those guys truly dont know what the fuck they're talking about.

Its on par with RTW. Ie, overall essentially toss. Man im so jaded.

Theyve redone the recruitment system, and its better, i'll give them that. This time you can hire more than one unit per turn depending on which improvement/building you have in your settlement.

The world is small. I think there are less towns than RTW.

The historical innaccuracies are total BS btw, and the AI remains just where they left off. Totally retarded.

On one campaign, i played as the English, and immediately started grabbing rebel lands with ease by just sieging (i have a mod installed that makes sieging much more expensive).

Ive played as the Byzantines, Germans, Venitians and English, but can't really find any satisfaction.

The AI in battle is dumb. They usually run their missile units away from their army to about 100 metres of your force, then its as if theyve realised where they are that they turn and start to run in the opposite direction, during which time my missile troops are having a happy time bowing their backs.

When the rest of the enemy force arrives, they stop for a long while in front of you, allowing you dish out momre punishment with you missile troops. Then, at some point they decide to charge their cavalry into your front regardless of whether you have spearmen/swordsmen. No flanks, or any clever manouvres by the AI,

Something weird goes on too in these cavalry engagements. On 95% of the these attacks, my spearmen take a few casualties, but on the other 5%, they suffer horrendous casualties. About 80% of that unit will lose its men before i realise it (happens bwteen 5-10 seconds) and then I drive off the enemy cavalry with whatever is available as emergency.

I swear theyve got the crossbow physics all wrong. In almost all cases, in the game it has greater range than the bow, which is BS afaik. Granted, it does have better in-game penetration (which is true) but range?! BS.

Also, very annoying is charging. When i charge something, only my first row of men will actually charge, the rest will stay back for about 10-15 seconds, and then slowly "sneak" into the fighting. Gay. Why is this? Shouldnt all the unit just smash into the enemy, not just the front file?

Also, when my cavalry fights, i see signs of retardation. Suppose i tell a heavy cav unit to attack a swordsman unit, the cavilry will not smash into the enemy in a cohesive manner, no. 90% of the time, it seems the horses get confiused and start running and dodging in all directions, only making about 50% of the horse fight at one time.

Generals are still gods. Ie, they still have 8 million hitpoints.

Manovering troops in cities is still bugged.

There is a poor range of troops available in the game.

Diplomacy is total horseshit. It means absolutely jack shit. Countless times ive been on the upper hand with a strong army, yet lesser factions with armeis of 2 units constantly break alliances even if the relationship is good. I have NEVER started a war. Does this tell you anything?

It still feels as if you're fighting against a world of zombies, whos only ambition is to mass suicide itself onto your armies.

lmao...you really are the king of jade, Derf my man!

I mean I can understand the game is disappointing to a hardcore historical strategist like you but I don't think it's all bribery and coincidence that almost every gaming mag gives it a 90%+, aye? ,)

I do hear and dread what you're saying about the diplomacy though...I remember moments in RTW where a faction with 2 provinces would declare war on me when i had 150k cash and over 40 provinces. yeah, that would be the smart and realistic thing to do.

haha....I think Derf is one of the most jaded gamers on clankiller...and we're all pretty jaded. I should register "jadedgamer.com" or something. Probably already taken.

Im playing as the English now because its the only faction that enjoys short periods of peace thanks to its geographical location and retarded inability of the enemy AI to launch seaborne invasions. (Was still a bug in RTW).

I pwn at holding off the danes and french, who every now and then they make futile attempts to besiege my towns. I have 2 armies station in the n.coast of france to repel such attacks, and until now, ive not started seizing territory. My tactic is to get the best possible army before going land grabbing.

I think this will be feasable soon. My army setup is:

6x Culverins
3x Retinue longbowmen
1x general
2x English mounted knights
8x Armoured swordsmen

+ reserves.

My swordmen suffer against enemy cavalry, but i say tough shit to that. I would rather have an elite spearman, than an elite swordsman.

The culverins are pretty devastating. Enemy AI has the audacity to field large numbers of siege weapons, so I must do the same to repel them. For now, theyre using catapults/trebuches, so my Culverins rip them apart. But when they start to field cannons, i will need to start fileding a more napoleonic army. E.g. More cannons and cavalry.

Btw, apparently you cannot wipe out the pope in this game. Which bugs me to hell, because I was looking forward to burning christianity to the ground.

Cant wait until the Total Realism mods start to pour in!

well, I got the game. Thankfully the game runs fine on Athlon systems. I'm playing as England for pretty much the same reason as Derf...best defensive positioning. The french got retarded and attacked me and I'm busy dealing with the Scots... got over confident and they put up more of a fight than I anticipated.

I'm kinda digging it, though. IMO, it doesn't look much different than RTW. The whole hyping of the graphics was....silly. It looks almost the same. I'm digging the increased depth, but it's very much like RTW in most ways. Even the maps looks to be the same.

Anyway, I'll have more reports I'm sure.

Any of you peeps made it to the New World yet? Just wondering how cool it is (or isn't) to fight Aztecs and the likes.

Update:

I got to the new world age with England with relative ease.

I purposely did not expand into France and Denmark (which were frequently attacking me). Instead I concentrated on building my economy while defending my frontier (northern France) with only 2 armies due to the good geographical location (and inability of the AI to launch amphibious attacks).

Antwerp and Brugge were rebel strongholds for a good number of years. I sat back and saw France and Denmark fail several times at trying to take them, and I did so purposely to distract them. Meanwhile, i was turning into a powerhouse, so much so that i didnt need to bother with petty diplomacy or even listen to the pope. No one would mess with me, except my neighbors.

My target was always to arrive into the gunpowder age without expanding beyond the n.coast of France in order to form a new kind of army. This kind of army is so powerful and battles are quickly over in a matter of few minutes, again, thanks to the dumb AI.

9x Culverins
1x General
10x English mounted knights

I always start off far back in the field so my culverins can give the enemy a good pasting, then when they arrive (or my artillery are out of ammo) i charge in all the knights, which make short work of anything, even pikemen.

Running armies like this is expensive to upkeep, but thats no problem for my economy.

So i played it like this until the New World age started. I was so excited at the prospect of being the first faction to venbture off and colonise the new world. I had an army ready in Ireland for years, and then the yeat came. I set off, but there is comically fuck all land to colonise. So much so, its not worth the effort.

At this point i was rethinking my objectives, when the only one left to me was to become an imperial power and start conquering Europe. At which point, it though it was going to be too easy. So i started a new campaign As the russians.

As with all campaigns, this one is fun to start off with. Russia starts off with 1 province (Novgorod), but loads of rebel lands around it. Immediately i started stomping and capturing Helsinki, Lithuania region, place west of Novgorod, and a place south and east (i forget the names).

I settled yet again with a 5 region kindom (in similar fashion to my English campaign) and started to build my economy. This was harder with the Russians, and eventually the Hungarians started to give me trouble. I had 1 army on the ready and beat them back quickly and effectively. Since then ive been perfecting a new fighting style, much quicker and deadlier. Not to mention, cheaper!

10x Kazakh horse archers
1x General
9x Boyars sons (mounted javeling/axe mailed)

Same kind of plan as before, but obviously the horse archers storm off ahead, surround the enemy army and bow the shit out of everything. They take a few casualties, but theyre cheap and easy to replace. Mostly they cause so much chaos that the enemy missile units cant get coordinated enough to do damage. Once the army is softened up. I pull back the Kazakhs, into what i know will be the retreating path of the enemy. And bring forward the Boyars Sons. These are javelin thowing horses, but are decent at combat too. So they throw their shit and finally ride down the army. All retreaters are cut down by the Kazakhs.

This is an awesome way to fight. Hardly any casualties, and enemy siege weapons dont do much damage at all cos my horses are always moving.

Ive had to make a bold decision lately because I knew the Mongols were in the Baghdad area, and i would get a good bottleneck position east of the Black Sea to fend them off when they eventually try and enter the currently Hungarian Georgian region. So ive had to build 3 armies of this kind. One holds my westen border to fend off Danes and Poles, and the other two go land grabbing east and south into the Hungarian empire.

Ive got about 3 provinces to go until ive got the perfect defendable front, which should be easily accomplished by the 3 armies I have now.

The economy was going shitty cos of the increase of troops, but when i started grabbing land, i was fine on the florins side of things.

Right now, im trying to get those last few provinces to get that bottleneck. I should do it easily within 10-20 turns, by then I expect the Mongols to start giving me trouble in the south. I might need a 4th army stationed near the Black Sea just to make sure if the Mongols turn up with huge numbers.

Hehe, cool story. Watch out for the elephants from the East!

hehe...my turn.

Unlike our Derfian friend, I've continued to play the English. I was able to annihilate the Scots and take England for mine, at which point I converted everything into cities and became a shipping powerhouse. I then invaded northern France and slowly pushed my way into Europe. At this point, France is destroyed. I've expanded to Antwerp in the north, Toulouse in the southeast and some city to the west. I haven't moved into Spain yet, but I have a full army encamped in that area so I can quickly wipe out any enemy incursions. My navy pwns the seas and I currently have a couple Carracks heading west to the new world to see what's going on.

As an interesting (and annoying) aside...I had send an army on a crusade. Due to horrible path finding, I had most of the army desert during the treck, so I fleshed it out with mercenaries. I was almost there when the crusade ended, so I just took the nearest city.... which ended up rebelling because I just occupied it. So I took another city and wiped out the inhabitants. I had managed to fortify that one city heavily and conquer a second when the next group of hordes arrived from the east.

And this is where the real irritation began. They took my second city after several bouts of AI stupidity (they'd break into the city, then just sit at the outskirts until the mission timer expired). After finally taking that, I was prepared for a hardcore battle against cannon-wielding elephants. I had 4 units of artillery, a crap load of archers and enough billmen and swordmen to hold their own. And the game crashed. Every time I loaded into the battle, the game would crash after about a minute. I was hoping on using fire arrows to try and freak the elephants out, along with my artillery to put some pounding down. But it wasn't to be...I had to autoresolve it.

So that's where I am. My economy is rocking...I bring in about 60k every turn (though I spend 45-50 on upkeep). I have a killer navy (actually, like 2) and about 3 armies that pwn everything. My military setup....

For defense, cannon towers OWN. I had some cannon towers singlehandedly pwn an attacking army...smashed up 4 battering rams, some guys with ladders, and a siege tower. Twas very satisfying. But anyway...

Offensively my armies are very missile heavy. I'll typically haul along 3-6 artillery (culverins on the newer armies) and then mostly archers, like 6-8 units or so of longbows. I may bring along a general and a few cavalry, and typically 2-4 heavy infantry (dismounted feudal knights or armored swordsmen or something). I will then pummel armies into submission with bows. The missile fire is withering enough, and the AI stupid enough, that most armies never make it to melee range. If they do, I'll charge in the infantry. The cavalry I'll typically run around the backside of the army to take out their artillery.

Good to hear Sat. Sounds like youve got a good grasp.

I've had to packup and abandon my Russian campaign. My objectives were to push my 2 armies against the Hungarians to achieve a bottleneck. In the end, it went pretty tits-up.

I managed to smash the Hungarians and capure Georgia with my eastern army. But my southern army was having truble in Ukraine (Kiev). Militarily i dispatched what the Hungarians threw at me, but occupying Kiev itslef was more complicated task on its own. The locals were VERY pro-Hungarian, so immediately I was having riot troubles. My army garrisoned inside, but being only horses, it was low in numbers so it couldnt quash the resistance.

I also need to point out that at this point, my economy was heavily underachieving compared to what i thought it could've been making. I had gained three settlements, 1 city (kiev) and 2 castles. Yet for some reason, i was making very little cash, even though I only had 3 armies.

Kiev eventually rebelled and my army was kicked out of the town. This meant that i was now going into debt. My army that had just been kicked out needed reinforcing badly from the rioting and previous battles, yet i had no money to do this. So I started to besiege Kiev again, with the objective of sacking it.

As a bold measure to acquire funds, I decided to destroy all of the blacksmiths in my cities in order to convert 2 of the new Castles into cities to gather new funds. In thery this would have worked nicely, but in practice, something odd happened. Upon conversion, the population of those towns become very angry. Which i find slightly bemusing. Yes, the military presence of the town dissappears, but surely the citizens should be happy to know that their town will now prosper? Meh, in short time, those 2 eastern provinces rebelled and there was no money for me to do anything about it. I was prepared to disband my eastern army in an attempt to make funds, when the final blow was struck.

Having stationed my western army (whos sole purpose was to deter Poles and Danes from attacking) outside of a city without a general, suddenly the army turned into a rebel army, and my western cities were unprotected. The danes quickly sent a tiny force of 5 heavy infantry to one of my most lucrative nearby cities, which of course they assaulted and capured with easy. It's way too easy to caputre settlements by assaulting.

I had no hope at this point, so I took the lesson, noted the new retardations of the game and went to bed.

Now im trying to think of a new campaign faction to play as. Im thinking maybe the Holy Romans, but geographically, they are utterly fucked. The catholic factions are buggered. The Now im thinking about maybe some Islamic faction. The Turks is a no-no because the Mongols will spawn up their ass............Maybe the Gyppos? Hmmm.. Thats a thought. They should be rich and have decent geographical advantage. My only concern is that they might have shitty troops.

Apart from the Gyppos, Maybe the Moors.

Its a shame youre forced to subscribe to a religion. Fucking religion, as always, fucking everything up.

religion can be pretty powerful, though. Try taking a couple priests and moving them into territories controlled by your enemies (of a different faith). Assuming they don't get assassinated, they should slowly convert the people to your religion, causing instability in their cities.

Anyway, sorry to hear you got pwnt. Better luck next time. How about the greeks? Starting in the Med might be cool. The main reason I'm as successful as I am in England is because of the shipping trade.

The greeks? Did you have a blonde moment there Sat?

well, by Greeks I mean whatever damn civilization owns that general area. Hey, if they own greece they must be greek.

lol - "general area". You really are american.

Thats the byzantine empire, which is the old eastern roman empire. Mainly Greek speaking, but very multiethnic and has very strong lydian influence.

They are as greek as you are English.

hey, just because you can walk across your country in 30 minutes doesn't mean I know the Byzantines from the Florentines.

Anyway, I've continued my campaign. It only just recently dawned on me that the game is time limited....and I have 21 turns remaining. I continue to own England/Scotland (of course) as well as most of France and that "general area" (bastard). Due to the suddenly-realized time constraints, I'm expanding aggressively into Spain and east into Denmark and that 'general area" (bastard). Which has so far gotten be excommunicated.

I had a very violent battle for the Danish capital city last night before going to bed. No culverins, unfortunately, but I had 5 units of mortars, a big old bunch of archers, 3 units of swordsmen, 2 units of billmen, and a general. The enemy capital was a city (thankfully not a fortress) and was armed with cannon towers. There were 2 enemy armies involved.

I used my mortars to blow up all cannon towers nearby and bash a hole through a wall. I then had all my infantry run in, quickly smashing the town milita standing on the other side. There was some handgunners on the walls, but they seemed to not do anything. I then attacked the general that was standing there. That was very costly...for some reason the suckers fought really well...and the damned general was left alone, killing one after another of my men until I finally pulled his ass down. It was kinda silly....5 units of heavy infantry (at probably 60% strength each) trying to take down this one guy.

Anyway, I ignored the gunners on the walls and just started toward the square. The enemy kept sending units out from their town square to intercept me which I would engage and massacre with my infantry. I also brought in my archers and cavalry, which helped to crush the heavy infantry he was throwing at me.

In the end I ran my entire army (including depleted mortar crews) into the square for some manic hand-to-hand combat with the defending forces. My losses were pretty steep.... after hacking their way through most of 2 armies, my heavy infantry were depleted, so I was using my archers and mortar crews pretty heavily. Still, I was victorious.

Now I just need to figure out how to conquer 24 more territories (and Jerusalem) before I run out of turns.