Quote Originally Posted by GFX707
There's no time for strategy in this game when two armies meet on an open battlefield, you deploy your units, march them towards the enemy (taking maybe 3 minutes) then they clash and evapourate while you madly click on a bunch of unimpressive antlike dots from miles away and one lot runs away (all of which takes maybe 15 seconds) which sucks really....the only time you get to zoom in is when your army is chasing the other army away
Funnily enough thats not my experience at all.

Admittedly in a real time environment there is only a limited reaction time but nevertheless I have managed to enjoy some quite epic battles. Mind you I think it depends on the game settings.

I'm playing Medium/Huge Units/No Timer, so I'm not under a time constraint which requires me to charge at the enemy bald-headed and can take the time to develop a position.

I have also been impressed by some of the reactions of the AI. I've noticed that it frequently uses its light cavalry effectively to drive in my skirmish lines before making its main assault, whenever possible brings forward its archers to harrass my elephants with fire arrows and frequently tries to drive in my flank guards with its heavy cavalry.

From what I've heard and read ancient warfare was not that tactically sophisticated anyway. I was watching a program on Alexanders famous Battle at Issus which was basically won and lost because both Darius and Alexander chose a tactical plan at the start and stuck to it. It didn't sound like any clever tactical ploys were introduced during play, everyone was too busy killing each other.