had a hard time at first but once this game set in it turns out to be one of my favorites of the series.
altho originally i had alot of issues with different aspects of the game, but alot of these issues were just due to it playing slightly differently then previous total war games, and not the most clear cut unit strengths at first glance.
There are some pathing issues espcially when controlling multiple units, and learning what units are good and what you want is a bit of a headache, but if you can make it past that point there is a good amount of content within the game, and ive actually played through multiple times now.
if i had to pick i would also choose this one over shogun 2 or empire, but not quite as good as medival imo. big open maps of europe with many factions and battles that take far more advantage of cannons and artillery (which come in batteries of 4 now) and cavalry while still being very important isnt as overpowered as some of the other total war games.
Ive got the penisular campaign and that was a good time and worth it, but i would not waste money on any of the army packs for these total war games. The reason being as that those units are not able to be used by the ai player and its armies. There is no script written in and the original game was not balanced with those types of units in mind and so are in essense not legitimate troops but cheating tools anyways.
Overall i love this game (and im a hater for the most part) and i still end up playing it from time to time. It brings a nice twist to the whole total war system, and total war has had some great contributions already.
If you like these civ/rts games, you'll most likely like this one too.