I've never played this game myself, but I played all the previous games years ago and my favorite is the classic Age of Empires 2.
It was a great RTS with everything. It's a game that I would never get bored even if I played it now, because as you mentioned, the scenarios were based on real events, so there were nice cinematics. It's great that they improved it in this game and added nice details to the game. I can't wait to play it, I hope I can play it sometime.