What a lot of people forget is that RTW is comparatively historical. I have never seen a game that distinguished between hastatii, princeps and triarii, nor a game that included the Seleucid Empire as a playable faction, nor a game that made an attempt to model phalanxes as RTW did. Granted, the portrayal of the Egyptians and many of the Barbarians was way off, but considering the alternatives, RTW is pretty good as far as realism goes. After all, EB is being based on RTW, not Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Civilisation, ect. As such, I don’t quite get it when people start comparing spear warbands or legionary cavalry with wizards or spaceships.

Overall, my standards for historical accuracy are often fairly high, especially in movies (I refused to see King Arthur). However, I am willing to cut game designers some slack. It’s harder to make an interactive model of a period of history that lets you play (and enjoy) it from all sorts of angles than it is to simply show it in a book or film.