I voted 8/10. It's another TW game and much like the previous TW games it's got depth and re-playability so no worry about the bang for buck angle from my perspective. That's always worth at least a baseline 5/10 rate. The baseline includes the graphics, general game concept.

I like the new angle on working to take and hold the Pope spot to make life easier. That's a +1/10.

Adding in traders and "trade war" aspects is another +1/10.

The new recruiting system is something I'm still getting used to. I'm the kind of player that habitually keeps as many stacks of soldiers on hand as I can afford, just in case. This new recruit system means I can start working on weaning myself off that and I'm enjoying that so far. +1/10

The bugs and glitches are to be expected. Games are getting so complex that the idea of a bug free release is gone the way of the dodo but I have faith and confidence that the CA folk will address and fix them and what they dont find and fix, the game community will so +/-0 on that.

The AI and sea battles I've lumped into a -1/10. Those were design decisions so I feel it fair to give em a neg tic on that. It may well be a decision that added many new players to their buyer base at the expense of some of the more hard core players and sometimes those decisions just have to be made. It aint a game killer for me, since I'm no where near a hard core so I only hit em for one point on that.

The unit roster is a bit sparse and there seems to be a few of the nearly same units (weapon, stats, special abilities on the early level English spears, for example) with different names and slightly different looking unit cards. That would be a hit for another point off the top but the mod community will fix that so it's a point that can be picked up later.

So my end score is 8/10 with a possible 9/10 later. The one lost point is due to AI and sea battle design decisions.