It's similar to Empire (obviously), but the battles look better.
But I like the medieval and Roman settings much more, so I'll be playing those.
Added 5 minutes later
I'm currently playing as Byzantium, as I mentioned before. It's quite interesting to be in the center of everything.
I've captured the neutral cities around me and now I'm defending. The Turks are a nuisance to the east, and Venice (the Venetian Empire, I'm not sure what the correct name is... it includes Italy, Venice, Sicily, and Rome separately) is to the west. The Hungarians are to the north because I took their city of Sofia (and Venice also lost a city on an island). The Rus' also tried to bother me, but they changed their minds. I crossed the sea and captured a town near their territory, and now they're annoyed.
Oh, and a crusade was declared, so Europeans are marching through my lands. It's dangerous; the Venetians arrived with a full army, but the crusade was canceled (the Germans captured Antioch), and now they're wandering around my homeland. What should I do? Well, at least I killed their general; now I just need to destroy their army