For me the biggest dissappointment in RTW is the lack of challenge. I haven't played STW, but when I began playing MTW it took quite a few battles and a lot of forum browsing to discover all the tricks and ways to beat the AI and even after that it was still quite difficult. It was fun, step by step I could face greater enemies with more confidence, but victory was NEVER certain! Now RTW is just plain boring in that aspect, the AI ALWAYS uses the absolute same tactic. It deploys in a long thin line and charges, thrilling, isn't it? In MTW the AI tried to manevour for higher ground or a better position, I remember trying hard to out manevour him.

I mean a battle in RTW where my army of 2300 beat an enemy of 3500 and I only suffer 37 casualties, that is not normal! Sure I could put it to VH and see my unit of heavy cav be cut down by archers, but that is just plain stupid, ahistorical and most importantly NOT FUN!

RTW has been made more appealing to the FPS crowd and thus it was seriously simplified, I mean the AI uses barbarian charge tactic for every army out there *sigh* Yes it does, I made a test where I gave the Parthian, horse archer heavy, army to the AI and it just charged it.

The second great dissappointment was the lack of historical accuracy. The Roman factions are portayed nicely, but when one looks at the barbarians It doesn't really help if all barbarian factions have the same units which are named like in some very old games - I mean: swordsmen, chosen swordsmen, spearmen, cavalry, noble cavalry. It is like it used to be ten years ago, where you faced yellow enemies, blue enemies and red enemies and there was a boss that had the same skin but was black. *sigh*

And when we see some difference it is totally shocking...druids...head hurlers...

The above really takes away from that feeling when you play the game, where you think who it is best to attack and you need to take into account casualties and the size of the enemy army. It was nicely pointed out that in RTW you just run over Europe with a vacuum cleaner, doesn't really matter who you attack, you will probably win, even if you don't use the cheesy bribe. ( Full stack for 8k anybody? )