Quote Originally Posted by The Wizard
Excellent, that reverses a particularly painful change that marred RTW for me: the absence of an elaborate tech tree. After some fifty to eighty turns (a fraction of the total possible playtime) in RTW, you had reached the end of the tech tree, and had all the most advanced and most powerful units that could be fielded. Moreover, the way to attain these most powerful of units was exceedingly simple: to get each of the most advanced production buildings all that was required was population growth. No tie-ins with other buildings (think smithies, markets, etc.) -- just straight upwards.

It made for an extraordinarily bland experience concerning the units you could produce, especially considering the enormous and diverse tech tree that MTW showcased, which was also renewed and increased every hundred turns or so. I, for one, quickly lost interest as from turn fifty onwards my armies would basically be the same and all I would be doing was churn out new ones, instead of developing my armies constantly. That, combined with the simplistic, gamey combat and the MTW AI that couldn't handle itself on the new map, made RTW very boring very quickly.

Edit: I read over the entire interview, and I must say -- the man does like his gimmicks, eh? That's all he really talks about. Gimmicks. Yay, castle can turn into city. Yay, more diplomatic options. Yay, you'll be forced to rely somewhat more on diversity -- but these are all features. Where's the big picture? These are all cool ideas, but they remain novelties and add little intrinsic value to the game. Why doesn't CA build a good foundation upon which to construct its fabulous little quirks -- instead of dumping them on quicksand?

Those are my thoughts exactly! The tech tree in Rome is short and boring. Hell, in some factions in the expansion you literally can build every unit in your army immediately! RTW is lacking the "civilization" like aspect of MTW, which is one of my favourite things about the game. Maybe its just me, but there seem to be alot less variety of units in Rome, too. I remember playing as the turks and egyptians and having so much variety I couldn't decide what to build! Having multiple units that fufill the same role, but slightly differently, is a good thing.

In Rome, I only play multiplayer, really, because the campaign is boring, plain and simple.