Hi everyone.
 
I got Medieval Total War 2 as a free download from dixondownloads and have been really enjoying it. I have always been tentative to try this series because I prefer to have a lot of control of my units, hence I play Starcraft 2. However I really enjoyed this game, mainly the world map feature as I am an avid Civ fan. I felt like this was a well done map and has given me a good number of hours of fun. I like that if I find myself in a fight where I have crazy numbers advantage, I can auto fight. However I have found a few serious issues that have made me already get tired of this iteration. So before I purchase the next one that I want to play, which is Napoleon TW, I would like you to help me out with these. Cheers.
 
1. The biggest issue I have had is reforming armys after a fight. I hate having to scour through my list of units and merging them together into full squads. Doing this manually took a lot of time, then sending unfull squads back to towns to retrain was a real pain in the arse. After a 150 odd turns I had 5 or 6 armys constantly fighting, and micro managing this aspect was not fun in the slightest. So is this improved apon any in other TW games?
 
2. The Pope. Man I hate him. Do not attack this, etc etc. Please tell me he does not play a role in Nap TW?
 
3. Armys disbanding suddenly without a leader. This really bugged me. A few times in the game the general died without me knowing, and my full armys would just disappear as they run off. I do not like this feature. Is it still in the games?
 
4. My main issue with the combat was I found myself doing the same thing every time. Arty and archers to soften them up, send my cavalry around the flanks to wait. Send in the heavy infantry, flank with cavalry to hit arty, GG. Every fight went like this and I knew it would, this is why I preper SC2 for my fights. The town siege fights where more fun to some extent, but I found just blasting holes in the walls, rushing Heavy infantry in and watching was all i could do in the tight confines of the towns etc. 
 
If you can shed some light of any of these grevences than thank you very much.
 
Regards,
 
Mattjam

Another issue:
 
5. I like to set my army up in a certian way before a fight, but if I wanted to move them up in the formation i set up I could not. I found no way to auto move everything forward. If you just right click, the AI goes off in all sorts f directions, if you right click drag, everything goes into one line. I just want to move everything up in the formation I set before the fight?

 I played Empire but Napoleon TW.
 
1. I do not think its automated so you still have to manage the army yourself. 
2. The Pope is only in Medieval 2 TW. 
3. Not sure what causes that. I don't remember it being in Medieval unless you were on crusade. Its not in Empire TW anyway. 
4. The combat is the same in every TW game. It always boils down to that. Empire is a bit different since artillery and guns are more of the focus. Empire and Napoleon also have sea battles which are fun but you may get a little tired of them. You could try turning up the difficulty a bit and seeing how the AI goes from there. 
5. I always just select all my units and click a point in front of them. They always walk forward in line while staying in the same formation.

Thanks for the info Shane. 5 does not work for me, they all mix up their movement in Med TW for some reason.

Its only 7.99 on play.com so I see no reason to have a go at Nap TW!