Decided to give this game a try when I saw that the reviews had gotten better since the initial launch, and with this new extra content it seemed like a decent deal.

The campaign map is beautiful in this game, probably the best looking one so far in the series, but unfortunately with no agents and the Warhammer style building system it doesn't feel like there is much to do there.

The battles maps are great too, with lots of elevation and cover and variety. The main issue I have with battles is that they lack the visceral feel of the earlier Total War games, but without making up for it with big impactful units, artillery and magic like Warhammer did so you're just left with a wet noodle fight. Definitely a step down and without enjoyable battles, might as well play Civilization.

AI is braindead as always, especially in small settlements where they do not use their defensive advantage at all and just rush out one by one into the meat grinder, it gets boring pretty quickly.

There's a few neat mechanics this game introduces like the court intrigue system or being able to barter resources but those just end up feeling like one more thing to min-max without actually providing fun gameplay.

So overall the game is not bad, runs well and has a lot of "content" but at the end of the day it all feels a bit bland and i'm simply not feeling the irresistible pull other Total War games have had on me.

Decided to give this game a try when I saw that the reviews had gotten better since the initial launch, and with this new extra content it seemed like a decent deal. The campaign map is beautiful in this game, probably the best looking one so far in the series, but unfortunately with no agents and the Warhammer style building system it doesn't feel like there is much to do there. The battles maps are great too, with lots of elevation and cover and variety. The main issue I have with battles is that they lack the visceral feel of the earlier Total War games, but without making up for it with big impactful units, artillery and magic like Warhammer did so you're just left with a wet noodle fight. Definitely a step down and without enjoyable battles, might as well play Civilization. AI is braindead as always, especially in small settlements where they do not use their defensive advantage at all and just rush out one by one into the meat grinder, it gets boring pretty quickly. There's a few neat mechanics this game introduces like the court intrigue system or being able to barter resources but those just end up feeling like one more thing to min-max without actually providing fun gameplay. So overall the game is not bad, runs well and has a lot of "content" but at the end of the day it all feels a bit bland and i'm simply not feeling the irresistible pull other Total War games have had on me.