Great rts combat, babysitting turn based game.
I had this complaint with Rome Total War (which was painfully bloated compared to medieval) and it has carried over to Medieval 2 to a degree. The turn based portion of this game is overly complex and requires minor (in the beginning) to extreme micromanagement as your empire progresses. While some may say its all fun and dandy this is a hybrid game i beg to differ. Total War has really always been about the rts aspect, simply put it'd be a crappy civilization game with out it. Some problems with the current turn based portion is population happiness. Its relatively easy to maintain early on, however as you expand it becomes damn near impossible to keep everyone happy. Unlike the old Medieval the population don't just simmer down after a few years and accept your rule. While more realistic its a huge huge pain and distracts greatly from letting you do what you should in Total War. Kick ass with armies. The game also enjoys spawning rebel armies in the middle of provinces you've held for years right when your armies are way out on your borders. Another annoying aspect to the turn based aspect. The devs need to look back to Medieval 1 on how to do the turn based portion. Little micromanagement, minor financial concerns, and much faster and more often combat thanks to the reduction in time of moving armies because of the risk like board. Its goal was to let you get a large army into rts combat and it did it.
The Combat!
Ignoring my complaints about the turn based part we get to the rts combat, the heart of the series. I'm happy to say its great. My yardstick for total war games is Medieval 1 if you haven't figured that out yet from my previous comments. Units in this game are very responsive, charge without many glitches, and units are very balanced overall between factions. Now when units get all mashed together they do have some issues but overall its a huge improvement over Rome. Its great to see the engine mature and hopefully the upcoming Total War will refine it more.
Conclusion.
Its great buy it. Just be aware the turn based portion may make you want to kill yourself and if it does go play Medieval 1 where everybody loves your ass after a few years of domination. If it had some of the turn based portions tweaked this could have been really as perfect as games get.
Some one should mod this to fix all the issues i listed...