Quote Originally Posted by Morindin
Anyway I cant see myself playing many more than 2 campaigns in RTW until an expansion pack.
That would be a sad indictment of RTW if true. [Although, to be honest, I don't think I have played even one campaign of MTW solo to the bitter end, as I tended to lose interest when my faction became clearly the strongest.] I wonder if you have tried any PBMs in the throne room? They are what really gave MTW added life for me - maybe you should sign up for one of the RTW ones?

I found MTW a little too free-form - almost like a strategy game equivalent of the role-playing game Morrowind. You have great freedom and a pretty amazing world simulator, but can end up directionless and without sufficient hooks to keep you involved. PBMs get round that problem - the social aspect makes you care and there is definite end-point.

I've only played one RTW campaign so far - and it killed my computer midway through - so I shouldn't really comment. But I found it much more "more-ish" than MTW.

Partly it was the Senate missions - as Julii they seemed exceptionally well-chosen and well-timed, giving me a gentle nudge when things started to lag and giving nice rewards over short time periods.

Partly it was the strategy map - each army move is perhaps less important than in MTW and so it is less demanding (less chess-like). It has more of the Civ-like "one more turn" factor and less of the chess-like "my brain hurts" aspect.

And partly, it was a feeling that early dominance does not give the same benefits as in MTW. In MTW, I found that once you had absorbed an enemy faction, you were very hard to beat. This seems less true in RTW - perhaps due to squalor etc. Moreover, once the Julii have taken Gaul, there is still an awful lot to do. Other factions have more formiddable units (ok not hard given the poor Gaul line-up but nonetheless after the dross you fight in MTW on early, it was a great pleasure facing the Thracians fielding full armies with a hard centre of Phalanxes, flanked by lots of falxmen). Some factions - notably the other Romans and Egypt - do a decent job of keeping pace with you and make me suspect the Roman Civil War will be an epic.

Anyway, as I said, I probably haven't played enough RTW to reliably comment, but, at this point, it has fully lived up and indeed surpassed my very high expectations.