The previews have made a big deal about the new castle sieges and the improved AI that comes with it, so I've got some hope, but I too hated the siegefest that was Rome and Medieval II. Nothing worse than making a grand army to attack another faction with delusions of a epic open field battle to decide the fate only to end up using that army to push away several 2 unit armies into a city and then siege it. The battle then just becomes a jumbled mess.

I would like to see a siege here and there, as it would be cool to keep small sieging armies to take cities while your main army wins on the field, but let's not overdo it like before.

Another thing was that in Rome, the walls were either these twig pallisades or these behemoth stone towers, both highly unrealistic. M2TW did better at this, but the already poor pathfinding went to hell there...