wow, i'm flattered with all this attention. so far i havent heard anything activision since i mailed them.
now, to the problem solving. i still havent installed xp, as it would disturb a lot of other things on my comp, and i am not sure if it would work anyway. also, i'm in the military so i am not at my home computer very often.
i am quite sure that it doesnt have anything to do with corrupted campaign map or game files, as it works splendidly with the same discs on another computer, and rmeoving and reinstalling doesnt help.
the video aperture setting did not change anything. neighter does turning off shadows, but playing quick battles and custom battles with rather high graphics settings and shadows work well. it still freezes when a battles is loading from the campaign map, and where it is commences does not seem to matter, i¨ve tried sicily, northern italy, etc, with different roman factions. i cant play the others as i havent completed a roman campaign.
thanks for the help