So ...

[Doug-Thompson]

Snap out of it and play the game.

If it's terrible, take it to a used game store and trade it in. Then be glad for all those years of Shogun and Medieval Total War. It's not hard to imagine a world in which those games never existed.

Even if you don't like BI, I believe that it is enough of an improvement over R:TW to give you hope for the next game in the series.

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As for Turin's remarks, his delivery may have been unkind but there are a bits that merit a response.

Unfortunately, someone else will have to respond to the comments about the skins and the models. I respect the amount of art and work that goes into those skins. However, I don't appreciate them as much as I ought. Gameplay matters so much more in my personal value judgements, that appearance doesn't weigh much.

However, I do think it is fabulously unfair to skin (pardon the pun) a company for not producing a whole new line of better qualilty skins for an expansion kit. I know just enough about skinning to know that it is a very labor-intensive and expensive part of producing a game. BI is a new game in it's strategic situation and improvements to tactical gameplay, but it's not a complete rewrite.

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I cannot agree that cavalry is ridiculously overpowered, or that tactics don't matter. I don't believe that any unjaundiced comparison of BI and R:TW could avoid the conclusion that BI is better in those regards. In R:TW, you didn't so much guide your armies as aim them and fire. There is improvement in that area. Somebody point to any forum post similar to Kraxis "Impressive Hun" account in all of R:TW.

[zukenft]

Even though it is just mediocre, the expansion is still worth getting. You should really get this game. (note on GET and not BUY: I suggest finding a friend that buys BI and ask to have it after he's bored)

[Kekvit Irae]

As far as the save/load bug goes, I saved my WRE game, loaded it back up, and the AI *still* pounded me back into the dark ages (forgive the pun). Dont know if that was just me, or if the bug was fixed. Certainly saves me the trouble of trying to play an "Ironman" campaign.