If you get W2, its well worth getting all the ads, and then from the workshop, get the Renaissances mod; it makes it into a whole new game. I tend to play it sandbox mode with the largest possible map. Takes a while to play, but its great fun.
Note that you have to have the ads installed in order for the mod to work.
“O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days.”
'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'