It's a fantasy Total War with RPG elements.
It takes place in a mythical Britain. The south of the map is divided into a lot of different kingdoms. You start from Cornwall and make your way up towards the spooky forest in the north. The further you go north the more fantasy creatures you meet. Every turn is a season. Every season has different effects on your armies. During winter you can't move; that's when you level up the units, receive the resources from your vassals and, well, manage your kingdom.
The strategic map is somewhere between Total War and Heroes. There are locations that provide bonuses, like druid circles or monasteries. Quests regularly pop up. Some of them are text adventures, other are diplomatic or trading quests that may or may not end up being solved in battle.
There's a morality board... You move freely along two axis - Old Faith vs Christianity and Tyrant vs Rightful. You unlock spells by moving on this board, and the various factions, units and characters change their stance according to it.
Arthur is not an actual unit. You roleplay as him though and manage the Round Table... You give fiefdoms to your knights, manage their inventory, send them in quests and so on. It's seriously fun to pick up and manage these guys.
So, the strategic part is very cool and has a lot of depth.
The actual battles are a lot like Total War, but with some fun additions. They mostly revolve around capturing key locations on the battlefield (which is oddly realistic in a fantasy game). So you'll have to split the troops and runs for these locations - which also provide bonuses and spells for the duration of the battle. My favourite spell is lightning - it's beyond awesome to hit the enemy troops with a gigantic bolt and watch them being thrown around. These spells will make the difference on the battlefied. You'll rarely be able to just send everybody in like in Total War, it requires you to pay attention on multiple fronts. And you can command some really badass units, including giants. The game launched with some serious balance issues, but it's all working just fine now.
The game is stunning. The strategic map is incredible. The battle maps are huge. There's a lot of variety among the same type of units, you'll notice how they wear different armour, weapons and trinkets. The physics make the spells fun, you'll see how the pieces of equipment fall when the units die... The art styIe perfectly fits the setting and I like the music a lot.
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