Up front I'm going to just give this game a 7/10 in case you dont care about the reasoning.

PROs B====D

-This game is optimized?????????? I have a pretty dated system. i5 8gb 1600 ram, 660 2gb and I run this game on high (with unit sizes in ultra) at about 40 fps. That's awesome.

-Lore is nearly perfect. They capture the fasntasy universe like no game has done before.

-Sound. Everything sounds like it should. The rockets, monsters, and even the voice acting is great.

-AI is the best it's ever been. I cannot believe I am writing this in the pro section for a Total War game =)

-Visually this game is fantastic. Almost everything looks great. The only real issue is when it comes to city/village battles which I'll get to later in my cons list.

-Faction diversity. Each race plays very different from eachother. It also doesnt feel like arbitrary differences that hinder or buff things for no reason.

CONs B===D

-City battle suck huge balls. This is the biggest dissapointment. After all the awesome things they added in attilla to go back to shogun 1 style seige bettles is really really sad. The seiges have no depth at all, its one wall that you rush as many units at as possible. There are no tactics, just numbers. This is so disjointed from the rest of the game where AI has been buffed and tactics are really viable. It just makes no sense unless they rushed this part to get the game out.

-Village battles are nothing but regular battles. There are NO villages represented on the map at all in a village battle. Again this makes no sense whatsoever.

-Im not super upset by this next one but I know a lot of people are so I think I should include it. Combat animations suck. It's the old style "hacking at the air" animations from the pre Empire days.

Overall I'm stoked about this game. It's fun, it's accurate to the lore, and it's acctually challenging me for the first time since Rome. I just wish there weren't so many huge steps backwards for the gains. Seige battles are pathetic and animations really blow. Again 7/10

Up front I'm going to just give this game a 7/10 in case you dont care about the reasoning. PROs B====D -This game is optimized?????????? I have a pretty dated system. i5 8gb 1600 ram, 660 2gb and I run this game on high (with unit sizes in ultra) at about 40 fps. That's awesome. -Lore is nearly perfect. They capture the fasntasy universe like no game has done before. -Sound. Everything sounds like it should. The rockets, monsters, and even the voice acting is great. -AI is the best it's ever been. I cannot believe I am writing this in the pro section for a Total War game =) -Visually this game is fantastic. Almost everything looks great. The only real issue is when it comes to city/village battles which I'll get to later in my cons list. -Faction diversity. Each race plays very different from eachother. It also doesnt feel like arbitrary differences that hinder or buff things for no reason. CONs B===D -City battle suck huge balls. This is the biggest dissapointment. After all the awesome things they added in attilla to go back to shogun 1 style seige bettles is really really sad. The seiges have no depth at all, its one wall that you rush as many units at as possible. There are no tactics, just numbers. This is so disjointed from the rest of the game where AI has been buffed and tactics are really viable. It just makes no sense unless they rushed this part to get the game out. -Village battles are nothing but regular battles. There are NO villages represented on the map at all in a village battle. Again this makes no sense whatsoever. -Im not super upset by this next one but I know a lot of people are so I think I should include it. Combat animations suck. It's the old style "hacking at the air" animations from the pre Empire days. Overall I'm stoked about this game. It's fun, it's accurate to the lore, and it's acctually challenging me for the first time since Rome. I just wish there weren't so many huge steps backwards for the gains. Seige battles are pathetic and animations really blow. Again 7/10