I unlike the most of us here started with RTW. Medieval 1 is only known to me for a few weeks and I feel sad that I never enjoyed the experience of medieval total war 1. I am a new pc-gamer almost ex-console player ( might buy the Wii ). My first impressions on RTW was 'WOW'. I saw thousands of soldiers fight each other. Elephants hurling them pitty fools in the sky. It was like a childs dream come true: 'Is this really possible', I found myself saying a lot. It was almost like the excitement I felt in battlefield 1942. :) .

I played rtw and saw the campaing map. I wasnt joyed somehow and left the game for about 4 months or so. Then I say this friend of mine play it and I was like: oohhhh so thats the campain lol. So I started playing and it sure is awesome :D . Now I cant wait to play medieval total war 2. Especially with the Turks in it. ^^

my 2 cents.