This is my response to the TOO easy crowd and the not enough druid head-thrower "unique" units.

Creative assembly did one heck of good job with this game. Looks like their team focused on a solid set of priorities, features and polish. Absolutely one of the best games of all time.

To start, the changes to the campaign are four stars, fantastic. The capital/province system works much better than the jig-saw of the previous games. Immersion, simplification, and flow is all much better than the previous boring slog of move your stack to kill the next speed-bump in zone number 10 of 521.

So far, on VH/VH, as France and Austria, the campaign has presented a solid challenge - with minor nations declaring war immediately. Moving to actual battles, the new features and polish, like replays and saves make me shout another hell yeah.

The battle ai so far has done a really good job compared to the previous two games. My frenchies just got slaughtered by a Huron army! Just cause you got guns don't mean you own the woods. My frenchies next won an epic battle in Europe where my general got the "bloody" trait for losing so many men. So far the battle ai looks much more solid in their scripting.