As an American history buff, I'm excited about the Road to Independence campaign. I'm wondering what everyone anticipates, though, for the various "episodes," particularly the third one, where you have to lead the Continental Army and militias to victory in the Revolutionary War. It seems a big jump in scale from the first two episodes, and I'm wondering how it will work.

In the first episode, your task as John Smith is to develop Jamestown into a viable settlement and long-term foundation for the Virginia colony. OK - pretty straightforward, but it shouldn't be easy.

In the second episode, your task as George Washington is to lead your Virginia militia to take the Ohio Valley from the French. OK, also pretty straightforward, albeit bigger and more military-focused than the Jamestown episode. Still, not like you are the overall commander of all British forces in North America for the French & Indian War.

There's a big jump up in scale in the third episode - to lead the Americans to victory in the Revolution. That's probably intentional, since RTI is intended to be a semi-tutorial, gradually introducing the player to the elements of the game. I just hope they don't give short shrift to the political, diplomatic and military complexities of that conflict. Politically, you had a widely diverse range of regional and ideological differences in the Continental Congress and a fair percentage of the population opposed to independence. Diplomatically, of course, there was the challenge of bringing France and other allies into the war. Militarily, you have a wide range of tactical advantages and disadvantages of regular and militia units relative to the opponent, whether redcoats, Indians or both, and depending on the terrain and whether allies have arrived yet.

I hope it's a pretty good representation of most of those historical issues, but if it is ... it's going to be pretty darn difficult to win! Washington had to maintain the viability of the Continental Army long enough for the French to be convinced to come in, and even then, his cause was greatly aided by British mistakes - for example, British tactics in the South alienating a portion of the population who might not have gotten involved otherwise, and Gen. Clinton delaying sending reinforcements to Cornwallis at Yorktown. Will the AI make the same mistakes?

I guess my overall point is - although CA hasn't explicitly described RTI as a tutorial, I really hope it's more of a campaign and less of a tutorial because those missions were all enormously difficult historically and should hopefully be a pretty tough, rewarding challenge in the game as well.