Quote Originally Posted by gaiusjulii
One more quick thing if you are really into your diplomacy then you will be disapointed as there might aswell be none In MTW thats the one thing i can say RTW did get right
I must repectfully diagree with you there. In my experience, diplomacy in *all* the TW games is mostly broken. Yes, Rome and Medieval 2 has more features and options, but the AI is unable to properly take advantage of them, and its actions are just as bizarre and nonsensical as in Shogun & MTW.

I'll grant you that diplomacy in Medieval 2 is a little more transparent and easier to understand, but that doesn't mean you can actually have meaningful interaction with the other factions. It should be noted that others have said they find M2's diplomacy to be quite good, so perhaps I've just been unlucky in this regard. However, I remain extremely doubtful that it's any great improvement over the first three Total War titles.

@Omanes: You raise very good points about MTW's battles -- both the good and the bad. I've found the battle pace (in terms of both movement speeds and kill speeds) to be pretty close to what I consider ideal. It's maybe just a tad slow (especially in massive battles), but I much prefer that to too fast.

You're also right about the control scheme and combat interface not being the most user-friendly. While it wasn't overly difficult for me to pick up and get used to, I also can't deny that Rome and Medieval 2 are much better in this regard -- I find their battle UI to be much more intuitive and easy to use.