Nice review. I received the game yesterday and played about 30 turns since.

First impression is positive. Graphics are fantastic (but not so important for me). Very good atmosphere. Interesting new features.

Some short remarks:

- Diplomacy is much better than in RTW/MTW at least for lazy guys like me. You get enough hints about the others position to make logic decisions instead of guessing.
Unfortunately an ally is not a real ally yet. Venice became my ally only to attack me (with a rather weak army) 2 turns later.

- AI is better than RTW but sometimes strange yet. For example: I was attacked (as HRE playing on H/H) by the Venetians who sieged Bologna. When I came with an army to relieve the town the Venetians retreated to their bridge which was clever indeed. But next turn AI sent 4 troops (only spearmen) away without any reason. I attacked: in the following battle the 4 units of spear militia stand still and took the rain of arrows of my four bowmen troops without any movement. I had 3 units of spearmen and a general in addition; in RTW AI would have withdrawn from the battlefield in such a situation to minimize casualties which would have been much better.

- Frogs remarks about the performance give me something to think of. I myself was a bit disappointed in some situations. I had a battle in a wooden area with 4 units of mine against 3 enemy units and I had to significantly lower the settings. I have a relatively new pc with Intel C2D 2,4 Ghz, a GF 7950 FX2 and 2 MB RAM which is presumably a bit more than the average.

- I am angry about the fact that the stats are not longer in normal txt-files (didn't know this before because I didn't play the demo). That makes even primitive modding more difficult for pc-dummies like me. Fortunately thanks to notepad I could kill the green arrows otherwise I would have stopped playing. But in RTW it was more easy.

Overall it will not be to negative. I am very eager to play more at least.