I blame Gamespy. It kicks me out after a few minutes now. I can still play if I get my clan to host and ready up then I join and start ASAP. After we start battle I get the 'Disconnected from Gamespy blah blah.. ' message but that makes no difference, the game runs fine, it's just the getting started.

The actual multiplayer gameplay I'm ok with. It's not great but it's still good fun with friends. I am looking mainly forward to the Napoleonic Mods though.

Gamespy was the same with Stronghold 2 back when I was young and played that. I probably will avoid games that use Gamespy now. If they use that they are obviously very, very cheap games.