Similar to previous titles of the Total War series, the game let you take control of a faction of the Medieval times, and to build a civilization, both economically and militarily in order to conquer other factions. it also allows you to take control of the factions diplomacy, religions and other social issues in the campaign map. Its a turn based game and during the player's turn, armies, agents and fleets could be moved around the map. when 2 armies engages each other, the player can personally fight the battle, which involves real-time strategies ( the battle is what makes this game brilliant ) or automatically calculate the outcome via the AI.
During battle mode, the player could deploy armies, using different units consisting of infantry, cavalry and archers to crush the opposition, each nations have different units and must be used to its advantage in order to win.
The game also include famous historical battles such as The battle of Arsuf, Agincourt and Padua, taking control of different armies and change history!
The graphics is improved massively compared to its previse tiles. The game-play also changed significantly with new features such as castles and merchants. overall, a superb game