Osbot,

Yes, I feel extremely lucky. I enjoyed S:TW, loved M:TW and this game is so much more and in my most favorite period. I've seen all the carping about killing speed and movement speeds, but to me, the game feels fine.

I'm playing my first long camp as Scipii, probably somewhere in the middle game (trashed Carthage, eliminated Numidia) and was just thinking today about how so many things that used to sort of bug me about the series have been fixed. As one example, the marvelous city icons that go under the names. I no longer have to page from city to city to city, I can just look and see at a swift glance what's going on and where I need to give attention.

Or the way they've given us provinces AND terrain we can use on a strat level. Or the way ships/trade works or the fact that they fixed ammo so that I don't need to MOD ammo for archers/siege engines to give them a llittle more.

I only play SP. Never have liked MP much. Only time I do MP is with a friend from the Left Coast playing Halo. I did play Halo for a while on my own and when the players are good, it's fantastic fun, but more often than not there are just to many lame griefers, just like there seem to be in any other game I've tried.

I feel immensely greatful for all the hard work CA did and how much they obviously listened to us carp and moan.

CA, I salute you!