So I finally got ETW when it went on sale on Steam. Admittedly it was an impulse buy, but then I've played every TW game so I knew I was going to get it eventually. Just finished my first campaign playthrough, as GB, and I figured I'd give my thoughts on the game, good, bad, and ugly. I'm sure many of these things have been pointed out already but bear with me.
The good: The graphics are nice even at mediocre levels (I can only manage medium with some of the perks enabled even though ETW thinks I can handle Ultra), lots of little bells and whistles which were evident in battles and on the campaign map. The diplomacy, at least until the late game, is actually viable, and even in the late game isn't totally un-viable provided you don't mind shelling out obscene amounts of money. I also enjoyed the size of the map and the different theaters with which to go in. Using the Indiamen seemed like a fairly decent way of representing setting up a trade post in a remote region of the world that in that time frame did not have heavy colonization effort. I also liked the fact that none of the nations have grossly overpowered units they can spam. This created a very interesting dynamic where it took a long while before any one nation got a clear advantage over any other and also led to shifting alliances, which I vastly enjoyed. By the end the only eliminated major nations outside of Spain, France, and Maratha, who I offed myself, where Poland (who came back via rebellion only to die again) and Austria (technically not killed but a protectorate of Hannover so I consider that a fitting end of major power status). I also like that the movement speeds of units and ships seems to be better and not feel quite so lethargic. The research tree was a nice addition even though I was leery at first of such an addition, since that could have been very poorly handled, but I felt the pacing was appropriate. I also like how auto-calc doesn't horribly massacre you all the time as well and seems to assume that your commanders are halfway competent, though you still get some strange results at times. I really liked all the potential emerging and re-emerging nations.
The bad: The battle AI, while improved, still leaves a lot to be desired. That's been a continual trend in TW games though, and so if I've made it this far, its not going to dissuade me. The fact that I couldn't get a protectorate to save my life (well, theirs) was also mildly irritating and about the only truly broken bit I noticed in diplomacy, outside of some seemingly random war dec's (which a line of forts prevented thereafter). I also feel the diplo penalty for territorial expansion is rather larger than it should be, or at least it should take that nation's diplo status with others into account (i.e. if I take a mutual enemy's land, they won't really care and might even improve, a neutral will generate some negativity, taking their own land obviously should hurt). Also, I didn't like how I would take the hit even if I didn't keep the land if I was reconquering for friends. Also, what's the deal with Baluchistan counting as part of Europe and Afghanistan as part of India (also Baluchistan's lack of a port town...). Did not like the Thirteen Colonies' inability to defend themselves from anything more dangerous than a plant, and even then I'd not have been surprised if they lost to that. I got involved in almost all my wars in the first 40 years due to them. In that vein, what is the major Euro powers' absolute disgust of any minor nation existing in America? I eliminate Spain after our second brush-up and see Mexico and Gran Columbia emerge. I get trade and alliance with both since I figure that will be a good barrier to a future war but less than 10 turns later the UP, my long-time ally, attacks Mexico. I decided to go tell the UP to perform physically impossible acts and entered the war on Mexico's side (I'd kept those b-tards alive and this is how they repay me?). Since this was nearing the end game that war ended swiftly, though I had to pay 400k to get them to give up their colonial assets. This focus on America also seems to be why the Thirteen Colonies were attacked so many times. I mean, I can understand the Iroquis and Cherokee (just not the total ineptitude in defending against them) but Prussia? Sweden? Maratha?!?! Prussia and Sweden were manageable and strictly naval but Maratha landed two full stacks of good troops. Took me a good 5 years to fully destroy them as I had to build up something comparable in America. Also in that vein I didn't like European powers apparent total disregard for the Indian theater. Not once did they send anything, which let Maratha unify India and actually tech ahead of me by the time fighting broke out (and I had something like 6 or 7 unis).
The ugly: Whatever issue exists between NVIDIA and CA/Sega that prevents them from doing basic collaboration so driver updates work with the game. I find it rather annoying and sad that I have to play my game in windowed mode (why? who knows, but its a workaround for NVIDIA users) and many of the graphical glitches that lead to reloads are probably attributable to it too. This would be bearable if the text wasn't blurry, or at least larger, which is apparently a game issue, not graphics. The apparently corrupt sound files for the in-game videos also is sad, as I had to go to YouTube to see clean, non-choppy versions of them.
That all being said, I still found this to be a good game. It would have rated very good if the Ugly bits weren't there, since most of the stuff that was irritating to me is primarily nitpicky. I'd say for the money I spent I'm getting a good return, as when I get a stable load it can last for hours and the game runs smoothly and aside from that, I find the foundation to be a solid improvement in the TW series, even if I still rank RTW as the best TW game to date. One last thing: I hope they make ETW more mod-accessible, as it seems there is no suite of mod tools and the mod boards seem rather dead, esp compared to older TW games. I will be the first to admit that I played RTW for YEARS mainly b/c of the excellent mods that were released, and M2TW will definitely be getting a reload as soon as EBII comes out (though Broken Crescent was a good mod for M2TW as well). I certainly hope they don't give up on the modders as they push TW game from being merely very good to being truly great. It always seemed like a good model to me: CA makes a solid game foundation that people will enjoy, we buy it to support them, they make it very moddable and the modders lavish attention on the product that a company with multiple demands can't do, and miracles result, extending the shelf life (and thus profitability) of the core game, and making loyal customers out of us. Now I just have to decide what campaign to play next (maybe I AM a masochist)....
