Hey, no one on here is saying that the game is without flaws. The passive AI bug is an issue that has been documented and commented on at least a thousand freakin' times, but the AI is OVERALL still pretty decent.

I just got done playing a battle in my HRE game where I converted bologna to a castle. I had my zweihanders, armoured sarges, and merc crossbowmen against a huge mess of milanese italian militia and crossbowmen.

The enemy army lined up and took some of the bolts, but the cavalry decided that they didn't like being hammered and charged... well my armored sarges finished them off, and I moved in my own zweihanders in a braveheart sort of fashion.

Well the enemy army couldn't hold up against Imperial steel, and routed... but as I was chasing down routers, I stumbled upon a group left by the "useless" AI that was left in the woods to hide. It was made up of Spear militia, their best units on the field, and most of their geonese crossbows. Well the crossbows started poking holes in my beloved zweihanders, and the italian spear militia gave a good fight when I finally managed to push my winded infantry into them.

The AI pulled a classic textbook routing ambush on my and claimed a few of my best infantry units as a result. They still lost the battle, but now my army will be more than a bit lacking when I siege Milan. This, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of gaming AI to date.

Now while I was watching the battle with nearly 2000 units on each side, I was admiring the graphics aspect. The enemy soldiers had detailed animations when they were hit by crossbow bolts, were covered in blood, and actually slumped and died instead of turning into ground cover immediately. This is what I call polish.

The game is amazing despite it's quirks, which is why I can't stand these nitpicks about little details that are either useless whining or issues that are already being addressed. I spent 50 bucks of my hard earned cash as a broke college student on this game, and I would have happily shelled out 75 bucks if I had a chance to test it out first and see how magnificent it is. Compared to other strategy games on the market, which is really my favorite kind of game, Total War wins by a landslide.