I think the RTW cavalry is pretty OK, especially post BI. The light stuff does what it's supposed to - harries the flanks, picks on other light troops opportunistically, slaughters routers, and usually gets splattered if it tries to fight anything "heavy". Even heavy cavalry is not optimally used to charge decent infantry, nevermind now spearmen, from the front, all the more so if the footsloggers are "set" to receive the charge. Even far more powerful shock cavalry than the stirrup-less Antiquity era kind never did very optimally against solid heavy infantry. True "superheavies" - various Cataphract and Clibanarius permutations - and the elites are a different story, but then they should be - the Romans had a Hell of a time dealing with the Persian heavies, after all, and the Kataphraktoi were one of the more powerful shock elements in the Byzantine army.

Decent phalanxes seem to stop even them, though. I recall once having to kill those two Parthian Cata units with Seleucid Levy Pikemen - a fair few of them perished at the spear-wall, but the rest smashed through and caused quite some havoc before eventually routing.

That aside, I rather like the way RTW looks and handles compared to the earlier games. Cavalry in particular maneuver much more beutifully than in the past, and in general the battlefield troops look more... lively. I've bad memories of the seriously stupid-looking "file combat" animation of the MTW spearmen...

The campaign map is also a major thumbs up - I seriously can't imagine dealing with the rather crude STW and MTW ones after getting used to it. If nothing else it's by far more immersive and interesting, and allows for far more strategic chicanery.

Sieges also finally make sense. The STW ones were just bad; I seriously started doubting the usefulness of fortifications as a defensive measure in the game, aside from maintaining hold of the province while you massed a relief army of course. The MTW ones were just nasty; I never quite comprehended how exactly you were supposed to assault the bigger fortifications succesfully, at least without bringing in a full stack of artillery or something similar. RTW sieges are actually pretty fun, and at last proper siege engines are involved. The city scenes are also fairly interesting by themselves, and the street-fighting adds tactical factors.

And Jedi general are gone, thank God. Triple-gold upgrade bodyguards may be a terror, but at least the damn king isn't near-automatically the last one standing and doesn't rout half your damn army single-handedly before finally deigning to perish...

Easy modifeability is also nice. Even a layman isn't going to have much trouble carrying out simple edits that might be felt necessary, appropriate or whatever, and being able to look up detailed unit stats as is is nice.

On the negatives, the AI is still an idiot. That's probably the single biggest one.

The ahistorical units are a mixed bag. Personally I found some of them mainly amusing, such as the Arcanii, or characterful if silly such as the Egyptian chariots without which the faction would be pretty much just another collection of phalanxes. But I can see why many people might not be as generous, and the warhounds for one are odd and not terribly amusing.