Well, I checked the system a few days ago at the store to see when the game was coming in, since it shipped on Wednesday. Said we had some on order, and today, I got my copy. Given it a pretty good run around in the last few hours, and all I can say is holy crap.

The system is nearly flawless in how you control everthing, down to deciding who your daughter marries. The whole thing is so open - the only thing the game says is really.... "Your goal is to take Rome. Go." and then you start, with free reign to go anywhere from Britain to Saudi Arabia, and everything in between.

The battles are beautiful and fun. You have to think pretty quickly in moving things around. There aren't really any balancing issues I can find.

Favorite point so far? I have two, one for the campaign map, one for the battle map. Battle, I surrounded a group of Gauls with infantry on 3 sides, cavalry in back, and archers behind the infantry. Rushed in everything at the same time. Very cool effects. Campaign? One of my sons went crazy when I named his younger brother to be my heir. Name changed from Gaius Julii to Gaius the Mad, and his character traits went nuts on me. Pretty funny.

Anyway, I'm off to invade the alps. I really recommend this game for at least everyone to look into.

-Char

*pulls out Thompson and Blaster Cannon* I'm still hooked on CoDUO and Battlefront. *claws come out of fist* Oh, and City of Heroes. *hoards of Byzantine Infantry appear behind him* MTW as well. So many games, so little time.

What's the name of the one show that uses the RTW battle system to show battles? That show kicks ***.

Decisive Battles on the History Channel.

omfg negative reviews put me off on wanting to buy this and you go and post this. Noooo!!!!

Negative reviews? IGN gave it a 9.4, IGN readers gave it a 9.7, and Gamespy gave it 4.5 stars.

I'm addicted. Stayed up until 3 AM trying to fight off the Gauls. Made some trade treaties with Germania and an alliance with Britania. There are some 30 factions in the game.

This game is immensely realistic in how things happen and the amount of sheer control you have on what's going on. It's great.

Still trying to take over the alps, though I may just start heading south and take on Carthage. :: ponder::

I'm gonna try to figure out how to take screenshots in game and see if I can toss some pics up.

Do it! Do it! Screens! Screens! Negative player reviews if what I meant, not the big companies and gaming sites. PC Gamer gave it 92% and I read that whole review.

Can you tell me your system specs and how well it runs overall? Mainly interested in large battles.

I'm running a 1.8GHz, 80g hd, Geforce FX F900, 512 mb ram, and it runs great. Had a battle with five armies last night. Made me drool.

Figured screens out, so - shots up in a few.

I lied, I havn't figured screens out. Thought I had.

Just fought a huge battle - the Gauls laid seige to one of my cities, but I had brought in reinforcements. The army you control is the one actually attacked, any reinforcements are AI. Anyway, the Gauls brought in about 5 battering rams and started hammering at five different spots along my northern wall. Very intense, because I didn't have any archers to get a head up on them, had to wait for the gates and various wall sections to fall.

Ended up losing the head of my family and a good general before they retreated. I'm preparing to launch an incursion to punish them for the outrage. Meanwhile, I'm going to start spying on Sparta, because I want to take it over.

I'll try to get those screenies up today. If anyone can tell me how and where to find screenshots, I'd be much obliged.

Mmmm, yummy to SAJN's screens.

I remember the game at 1024x768 16xaf 8xaa full detail.

Talk about yummy.

Can't WAIT for Battle for Middle Earth, though

My first seige, I took the walls too. I lost the battle because of a timer though, real bs. I liked everything up until that point. I know my seige could have gone much faster, but I still don't see how you can go from near victory to minor defeat as your 5 feet from the flag. Heres a picture of my first seige. My plan was to scale 4 of the walls, 2 on each side of the gate and take out their archers and then open the gate for my spearmen and kings calvary. I neglected to try using a sapping point as I wasn't aware how to at first.



The game hasn't crashed at all yet or shown even the slightest bug. I have my settings all the way up and it runs perfect, armies are on huge. The game comes with a small manual, but everything is explained wonderfully through an in-game advisor and the interfaces and unit descriptions and such are really well done.

Anyone got an idea as to why I can't seem to take screenshots? I've had some great moments.

I'm currently locked in battle with the Gauls for France - I've cut their kingdom in two, and am going to make a dash for their capitol. I had a hell of a time trying to take the southern coast. They were relentless in their counter attacks.

Print Screen, paste in a program, host on a server. More to come.

Fraps is good.

If you can't find balance issues just try the MP. I guarantee you'll find some in about 2 games.

That may be it - I've been tooling around with the Imperial Campaign. Just wiped out the Gauls, finally, and can now turn my attention to the growing threat my allies in Carthage are posing.

The war for Gaul cost me six of the men on my family tree. I took revenge on the last three barbarian provinces by crucifying the populations...

O_o Vengeful bugger, aren't you?

They had it coming. Near the end, they were sending diplomats pleading for us not to attack and to withdraw from the lands we had taken. A few of them were jerks. They met early deaths.

Pulled another 3 am last night. I'm forcing myself to go outside for a while today. My life is belong to this game.

(I'll be outside for about an hour. Then, back to invading Carthage!)

I just got it and the Tutorial has crashed twice now when I open up the management scroll and click the senate tab. Does this happen to anyone else?

I am enraged right now. I made an alliance with the Macedonians, and I went after Sparta, the only city that the Greeks had left in that area. The turn right after I blockaded the Spartans port, I was informed of treachery. I was BETRAYED! The Macedonians blockaded my capitol city's port. My navy was sunk! I was out of transports, I couldnt reinforce my armies. Now I am trying to eliminate the Macedonians, and this war has become quite personal.

Along with this picture, I just sent out 2 infantrymen to explore, and they defeated a 41 man army of the greeks. Man this owns.

Still playing the tutorial...it's too much fun.

The only gripe I have so far is pathfinding inside cities and the lack of AI intelligence at times. I unlocked all the races and I'm doing my first full campaign as Egyptians. Well I was peppering arrows off a cliff down onto the enemy archers and their horses (generals guard). None of them could hurt me, yet they just stood under my fire and didn't go out of range or anything. I'm playing on hard difficulty for strategic and tactical. Anyways, the game really runs fairly well and the game should do wonderful if there is a quick patch to fix multiplayer, the senate CTD for many, and a few others things.

The questions I have are a) how do I sap? and b) can I send other groups up the seige towers?