Well done, CA

After a couple weeks of playing, I have to say that this is the best strategy game (and possibly the best PC game) that I have ever played. Well done, CA!

A few of my favorite aspects of the game are:

-The 3D battles, of course. I am especially impressed by the lifelike animations, such as when a horse leaps over a defender, where there is a real sense that indivuduals are fighting, not just a bunch of identical sprites.

-The strategic map is excellent, and although I haven't fought an ambush battle yet, I am really excited to see the possibility. This has long been a problem with strategy games of this kind, because so many of the great battles in history turned on an element of surprise or an unconventional deployment of troops. RTW really makes it possible to simulate this kind of thing. Wow.

-Despite the few problems being discussed elsewhere, seiges are a blast to play and they are a dramatic improvement over past games.

-The pre-battle speeches are a really nice touch, and I know it must have been a gamble to develop this feature. On the one hand, it could have turned out to be boring, corny and interruptive of gameplay. I can only imagine the discussions when this idea was originally hatched. I was skeptical myself when I first read about it, but it turns out to be a fantastic new feature that adds a lot of fun to the game.

-The Senate missions were a great idea. The Senate in general is a well-done game system that really built on what CA started with the Pope in MTW. The missions add variety and interest to the game, and the Senate really becomes an interesting minigame, of sorts, that adds to the complexity of the overall strategy.

These are just a few of my favorite things. At the risk of sounding like a kiss-up, I just wanted to give props where they were due. It's obvious that the people at CA have a passion for creating quality games, and RTW is further reason for me to pre-order any game that has the Creative Assembly name on it.

/salute