Total War, Men of War, and King Arthur all show signs in this amazing game, brought down by major problems.
The games story is based fairly on the epic story of King Arthur. Britons, Saxons, and a whole mess load of ancient spirits and monsters battle out for the fate of the land of Britannia. The game plays out as you, King Arthur, trying to take over the land and unite it under 1 king. The story line is brilliant, and the quest determine the fate of your kingdom. Certain choices will decide if you lean to the Christian or Old Gods, then it narrows down to good and evil. Each area offers special and powerful units, spells, and traits that can change your kingdom greatly by the late game. Your Knights of the Round Table act as generals, even able to level up and gaining special traits for specialization. All in all the depth, looks, and feel of the story and basic concepts make this game worth playing.
Now for the bad stuff. First of all, this game is HARD. I'm not the best at strategy games,I will admit,but I know enough that this game can be hell even on the easier settings. Some units are outrageously overpowered, and getting out with even half of your army may seem low in some cases. Archers and Magic users, for example, can wipe out your army quickly. A few spells can wipe out half of your army while the archers deal with the rest. It got so bad they even had to patch the game to make is mildly more acceptable.
Not only that, but the game ends up being a Take the Victory Point view of battle. Like Men of War, if you can hold the spots long enough the battle ends. This makes the fighting especially difficult, and the problems were already bad enough to begin with.
All in all, the game ends up being mediocre. While the overall game is brilliant, the story and detail in the world view is almost makes me want to give it a higher score. Bit in the end, the difficulty and unbalanced combat ruin the entire game, which is centered around combat and winning battles to advance. Hopefully, with the sequel in sight, they may be able to work out the kinks with the combat system and make a game worthy of rivaling the Total War franchise.