Rome: Total War (impressive screenshots!)

[A Black Falcon]

But how do you "finish" a game like this? Winning once? I don't know... its not too hard to finish a game of Shogun on easy. I did that. It gets a lot harder, though...

Oh, that brings up the one thing that LOTR has over Total War.

Maps.

Sure, Total War games have HUGE maps, compared to relatively small ones for most games of LOTR (LOTR2, anyway... not sure about 3), but you just get one map... that is too bad. Its not awful, but its still too bad... I really liked the variety of short-play maps you had in LOTR. As in, not too many territories so games don't take forever... but in Total War you just have single battle (and no battle-map creator either, like LOTR2 has) or the full campaign. Its a minor issue, sure... but it is the only real issue I can think of that is bad about these games. :)