the long awaited game is out!.i just finished the game recently using the French and let me share my experience. The game has great graphics, epic battles and an somewhat epic campaign which will take a long time if you play every battle that occurs. The thing that i cant stand is the pope if hes not from my country, he is very biased towards the faction he is from and will be very displeased with you if you are hostile with them, that doesnt affect me much but the people in my regions will get somewhat unhappy. Thankfully i solved this problem by building lots of priests who made it into the council and killed most of the Christian factions which made the choice of the next pope rather narrow haha had an epic struggle with many of the factions at the start, slowing i realised that i was warring with the whole world, sadly i did not come much in contact with the middle eastern races and the "special races" like Mongols and Aztecs. The cannons were wicked but the enemies arty had some affinity with my general for some really weirld reason. There were some cases where just my general was killed by this gigantic fireball.... Overall great game with some funny and entertaining instances, it really gives you the gladiator feel!