So, I got on a Total War kick again for awhile. As mentioned, I finished Oblivion, played Galactic Civilizations for awhile, and jumped around with a few other games ... but I kept going back to Total War. I was going to get Hitman: Blood Money, but I havent gotten around to it yet. A friend says it's awesome, and I've read a couple of great reviews and forum recommendations. Soon. But, back to Total War. In playing, and completing, the game several times, I can't wait for the next Total War to come out. I have to admit, it got a little boring after awhile, but I wanted to see how it ends with a few other factions, and really dive into ROME's 3 factions. When playing as one of the Rome's 3 factions, you have two main scales to watch - the senate and the people. The senate popularity rises with the missions that you successfully complete. The popularity with the people rises only with the amount of land you conquer. But, the contrast is that as you gain more land, the senate becomes suspicious of your faction, and your popularity will eventually go DOWN with the senate. So, there is a delicate balance that will eventually start to tip toward the people. I found it odd though ... I would only do exactly as the Senate ordered, and never conquer a settlement unless the Senate told me to. As you can imagine, this made the game take a LONG time, but it kept me in the Senate's favor. Eventually though, as I conquered more land, the Senate slowly began to dislike me. So, I kept going until my popularity with the Senate was at it's worse, and they begain ordering my faction leader's death. So, I kept complying, and my leader would commit suicide (luckily, my family was huge by this point, and I had plenty of family members to take his place). Eventually, I had the ENTIRE map conquered, and only the Roman factions were left. No new missions ... unless I was ordered to kill my leader. So I assassinated both of the RED and BLUE roman faction leaders until it was just me and Rome. So I finished off all of the rebel settlements (that were left after the assassinations), and the only province left was Rome. Realistically, you would think that Rome would surrender with a low bribe. Intimidation should force Rome to conceed ... but even with 250000 gold, the province decided not to conceed (I also assassinated all of Rome's leaders, so the city was empty of generals and "bribeable"). So, left to my final option, I attacked and finally conquered the city (like I did so many times before, with other factions). It was upsetting that there was no added victory video if the entire map was conquered ... no bonus. It made me grimace, shut down the game, turn off the computer, and walk away unfulfilled. Oh well. I'm still looking forward to the next total war. After all, ROME kept me busy for a LONG time. And although the lack-of-reward wasn't there at the end, that doesn't mean I hated the game. It was great and I am a fan of the series.