Has anybody taken the time to complete the Imperial Campaign while at the same time managing all settlements and fighting all battles on the battle map? I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to strategy games and as such I like to manage all things in the game.

I've had this one campaign game going now for 6 months with a reasonable amount of time devoted to the game per week. I would only be about half-way to conquering all lands and I haven't even begun to fight the other family memebers yet! Bloody lengthy but excellent game, I tell you.

Really, really looking forward to Medieval Total War 2. Should be excellent.

Do you not fnd the game gets insanely repetitive and the AI woefully inadequate to the point where you give up playing after a few weeks?

I play on the Harder levels of the game and find it to be a reasonable challenge. Certainly, in certain situations, the AI is a little weak, particularly when the player defends against their attack.

I must admit, I did give the game a break for a while after I first got it as it did seem a trifle repetitive. I think it was the end goal of simply conquering every province, you know. That doesn't appeal to me but the game is still a very good technical achievement in my book.

I like the depth and the balance of RTS battles matched with the strategic elements of the map - building settlements up, army customisation etc..