I started out with Shogun not long after it was released and was awestruck by that game. No other game has had that effect on me. Sheer brilliance and a an almost totally original concept, as far as pc games are concerned. When MTW was released I went out and bought it straight away, and was disappointed. I found it overcomplicated the brilliace of Shogun's gameplay. The v&vs and constantly plummeting loyalty was annoying, as were the revolts and civil wars. Losing patience, I gave up with it and went back to STW. After about 6 months having some time to spare and having pretty much played STW to death, I gave MTW another go, and started to get into it, later I bought VI and really got hooked into MTW. My opinions of MTW have now changed, obviously. MTW/VI is probably, IMHO, the best TW game ever and likely to be one of the best games ever. After playing MTW/VI extensively and experimenting with the various mods (XL, BKB, NTW, HTW) I decided to switch back to vanilla and mess about doing my own modding (minor changes such as landbridges removal, the sahara, removal of inns, some unit stats changes etc), which has gone well so far. I then eagerly anticipated the release of RTW. When this was released I noted some of the negative feedback in the TW forums and avoided buying it for quite a while. Finally I succumbed, played it, hated it, tried again, went through frequent periods of trying to go back to it, hated it even more then gave up, after failing to see any redeeming feautures, and finally sold it a few weeks ago on ebay. I won't comment as to the whys and wherefors because as Martok has stated, CA, and many of us here, are well aware of what it's flaws are by now.