The game is solid, and far far better then RTW.

M2TW has a much better campaign map. The risk style board was nice but it got old after awhile.

It has much better battles, much better, and shorter. If any of you can recall playing on large+ unit scale, playing on hard. Those couple of 30,000+ battles against the 2 biggest countries, that literrally lasted for over 2 hours on occasion. They became pointless after the initial engagement and sluaghter in the first 20-25 minutes and just kept on going and going. Indeed far better and a little more realistic battles this go.

The trade is better, you can't just roll in the money by staying nuetral with sea trade. Which brings another point. You can trade with other people without requiring huge navy trains.

The cavalry isnt insanely overpowered. They don't have that awful "irressistable charge" stat that meant they could go through a unit of men at arms in a heart beat.

Gothic Knights actually have a lance. They also even kept the armor peircing mace too, much better.

Crusade's are more fun. Their far more indepth you can't just build your own crusade. A crusade is now something all catholic factions participate in. They also now involve the pope, something the original didn't bother with.

There's a long list that keeps on going about whats been improved. M2tw is a solid improvement and a great game when compared to MTW.

It hardly has any bugs, and I've only ran across a couple, the passive AI, billmen/2haxes inability to attacl cavalry, and that awful one were the army gets stuck in the ocean after a battle across a land bridge. The AI is far better then in RTW. Expecially on the campaign map were it builds well rounded armies. But it also does that without completely bankrupting itself and depleting the populations of its citizens. In battles on VH it is actually more intelligent, and doesnt require a stat bonus for it at harder levels.

Solid game, can't wait for the patch though, the passivity kinda blows when your the russians.