Rome total war crash

I was playing RTW for the first time, The introductory sequence and the beginning of the prologue videos were fine but when it came to the first battle where it says "Prepare to defend Rome from the barbarian hord" the battle appeared to load but it then crashed to the desktop. It keeps doing that.
Does anyone know how to fix the problem?

:help:

All the best from your buddy George

We'll need a few details about your machine to diagnose that problem.

That said, vid card drivers are the usual culprit. Updating them often works magic.

You might want to try setting up a custom battle with one unit each on the grassland map first to see if the game can launch any battles.

But specs are a must. Without specs there is no way to focus in on an area.