well, i was going to use the rtw feedback thread, but that seems to be more about release times than anything else at the moment. so, what are your impressions? what do you like? what do you dislike?

so far, the only thing i find either not working or something of a joke is, i cant save in the prologue. when i hit control-s, i get a little window pop up that says 'save failed' that i then click off and return to the game. when i hit the escape key, there is no option to load or save the game.

the prologue is basically the tutorial game, so this isnt a biggie, but still, kind of annoying if you have to leave for something and cant save and come back. you have to start it over again.

other than that, all i've found so far are a couple little spelling/grammatical errors.

the game is huge at almost 3 gigs of harddrive space. there is no option for a 'custom install' which might have saved a bit of space. one install fits all. you get 3 cd's, a very nice paper map and a modest game manual. there may be more of a manual on the disk, since i did see a 'docs' folder when i looked at the folders, so the modest sized paper manual might be enough with extra stuff on the cd.

i havent played the real campaign yet, so no report on that yet.

what we didnt see in the demo was the campaign map. this looks VERY good. there is more info than previous games and it's laid out well. i love that you now get a movement range for each army, each turn. this is a shaded green area surrrounding your armies on the campaign map. when you click on a unit and havent moved it yet, this green shade comes up and shows you how far that army can move that turn. you dont have to go that far, but it does show you how far you can go. when you execute the move, the army then glides along, presumably, the easiest path to where you've asked it to go.

there is definitely more under the hood here. not only do you get an advisor in the tactical portion of the game, you also get one on the campaign map. she, yes she, will advise you on all sorts of things, including suggesting your next army to put in the build queue or the next building to put in the building queue. this is a great touch, particularly for those not familiar with Total War type games.

i also like the addition of senate missions, though having had to quit in the middle of the prologue, i only undertood one of those. i just hope on that one that i'm not more or less forced down a linear line of conquests.

that's all i'm going to report for now, having had to quit in the middle of the prologue. others can chime in here and quite probably fill you in better.

K.