Heh, well I guess I'd better tell you my conversion story then...

It all started a year ago, when I bought RTW, hearing that it was a great game. It sure was, I spent about the next 3 months on it continuously. I loved playing as the Roman Legions and fighting the barbarians to the north. Anyway, after I had just started getting familiar with the game, my game broke. Yep, it turns out my mum came in and saw the state of my room. Being the lumbering fool she was, she started sweeping things off of desks and broke one of the RTW CDs!

I was quite upset about that, but because I was nice I didn't tell my mum that she broke it, so I had to save up for a new copy myself. Anyway, while all that was happening, I stumbled across MTW at some electronics shop. Since I love buying old games because they only cost 10$, and I had heard that this game was good, I bought it. I tell you now, this is the single best strategy game I have ever played. I'm serious, the only thing that competes with it is Civilisation III. As it turns out, I found MTW to be better than RTW. There were literally no glitches I could find with this game, while in RTW I was always careful about certain actions. i.e, charging soldiers across bridges, cramming soldiers on top of walls and the fact that pikes were almost invincible from the front annoyed me.

So I started my first campaign as the English, and played it through to a minor victory. I didn't restart at a single point. From the point from which I didn't have a clue what was going on, to where I was very much experienced with this game, and it was the greatest campaign I ever played. Anyway, after that, I experimented a bit, usually doing half a campaign as other factions and in different ages, then restarting, at the same time reading guides and learning how to trade and build.

Then I went in for another full campaign, this time as the Byzantines. I spent several hours previously modding several things to my taste, such as messing around with the power and ammo of archers until I came up with a mod that I was quite satisfied with. I also reduced unit size from huge to large, as it took too long to build units in huge. Then I was ready, this time with a plan. Now I'm about 30% into my game as the Byzantines and enjoying every bit of it.

Playing as them is definately different to the English. It seems much more varied being in between the desert, snow and forests. Byzantine Infantry are great in an army, and I've had many satisfying experiences with horse archers. Naptha Throwers have also proven themselves worthy of being in any decent army, capable of saving my troops in a last stand, and two units once succeeded in routing a large army almost completely on their own. Any unit you direct them towards will be rendered incapable of combat.

Uh, so that's my MTW conversion story. The whole religion thing definitely makes things interesting, and the Pope also mixes things up. I'm also yet to see the AI do something stupid! I have to say it again, MTW is the greatest strategy game I have ever played, and I'm delighted to see such a great community of people who agree with me.