I tread softly into the fourier of my thread as I dare to blaspheme MTWII.

Seriously, though, maybe somebody else has had the same problems and has some thoughts on what to do.

I got MTWII with much anticipation, installed it and (about an hour later) jumped right in. I played for about 4 hours, gave up and went back to RTW. I haven't been back since. Why:

1. Better graphics != better gameplay. The new graphics are more realistic, dynamically lit and, well, frustrating. It's harder to see what's going on in battle for one thing. Too much fog, shadows and general murkiness. In RTW I can see my troops and the enemy clearly so I can concentrate on fighting instead of figuring out what I'm looking at. Individuals pairing off with unique animations - who cares? All it does is slow down my framerate. Badly. I have a PIV 3.4 G/512cach with 1.5G Ram and 128 on an ATI 9600. Not an uber rig, but not a shoddy one either. Point is: I spend very little time "up close" during battle. I don't care that they look more realistic. Gimme back my framerate.

2. Get on with it already. Everything is *s l o w e r*. On the campaign map, dude spends three times as much as he used to just winding up for the sword strike. Nice animation, but it takes too long. I know it sounds petty, but it's one example of the game being overall slow. Battles, notwithstanding slower framerate, take too long too. It takes much longer for horse to take down peasants than in RTW. If I have to wait this long for cav to scare off the peasants, I can't imagine what a real battle is going to be like.

3. From rags to riches. Eventually. I noticed that I ran out of money fast and made it up very slowly. In the number of turns it takes me to build up Arimium, Arretium, Segesta and take over at least Mediolanum, I'm still waiting for the queue to start up again in MTWII. Honestly, there is literally nothing to do except hit "next turn" and wait. Priests are preaching, princesses are princessing and army is waiting for the markets to actually generate income. This is first cousin to the "too slow" aspect. "Too much idle time" would be a good description.

4. First battle - mission impossible. OK, I know we're in Medieval times and everyone is past the fishing village stage so we should expect settlements to be built up, but my first assignment is to take a *rebel* "town" that is fortified with stone walls and lots of archers. None of my siege equipment survives long enough to even get close to the gate or a wall and I, of course, have plenty of pitch-fork troops but no archers because my queues are dead because what I have built isn't generating income yet, etc. etc. Basically I'm handed a mission that cannot be done until later. (much later as best as I can figure.)

And so I gave up. None of this was much fun. For me, RTW is the right pace, the right balance of graphics and playability and the right mix/balance of strategic stuff.

Has anyone else noticed anything like this as well? Or is it just me? (in which case, what am I doing wrong?)