If you haven't wasted $50 on this title yet - save your money and thank the gaming Gods they bestowed MTW1 on us.
The game is terrible. You can easily spend 8 hours managing a handful of territories. Random rebels appear in your territories constantly (along with heretics, witches, etc. As if I want to spend hours creating a priest and chasing a heretic around the map, there's no way to auto-manage this function.
The AI in battles is embarrassing. First off, you can't place your men properly. The nice system of arranging your troops in MTW1 has been "improved" by making it nearly impossible to see where they're going. Sometimes your can't command them at all. It really makes no difference anyway. The opposing armies will just march right up in front of your archers and stand there - until they're all dead. Whatever you do, don't engage them with your infantry or horsemen because your archers will just continue to rain arrows into your men as they melee - even if it's 5-6 enemy men vs. 4 legions of your own troops, they'll just keep firing - you can't stop them. All you can do is march them away - but sometimes it's not possible (for some reason). This is if you can manage to view the action because it's a BITCH to do. You have to use the mouse to turn your view, no longer the right/left key. The right/left keys now "strafe". Complete garbage.
The graphics in battle are incredible. Who cares. The gameplay went to hell. I gave it about 8 hours and will return to MTW1.