The Warpath Campaign Expansion DLC

[Zenicetus]

I doubt that they will add new regions or theaters to the game as it stands.

I am guessing of course, but it was limited because of system requirement as I understand it. That is why we have blank spaces on the map. If it were not than we would have Switzerland and who knows what else.

Yep, and even if it's not a strict RAM limit, adding more regions/factions means more CPU cycles. So another way of saying it is -- "How long does everyone want to wait for the AI moves to process between turns?"

There is also a question of how additional regions and factions might affect diplomacy. It's taken this long, and some false starts with early patches, for diplomacy to be even remotely predictable. Adding more factions might upset whatever balance they've been able to achieve in the 1.4 patch.

What's up with that province number limitation? Take Europa Universalis, for example, they have the whole world covered with their map and the number of provinces is definitely much higher than in ETW. So, technically, it's doable.

It would only be "technically doable" if they bought and used EU's code base. ETW is a different game, and the AI is crunching different data between moves.

I got a question.

They are expanding the North America terrorities, right? Does this mean all of North America is now avaible, or did they just put regions in the empty spaces?

Will the new regions/expanded areas be put into the normal grand campaign area? (if you own the dlc, at least)

From what I've seen (someone correct me if it's wrong) this is a standalone mini-campaign on a separate map, and doesn't plug into the grand campaign. That's what they did with the M2TW expansion too: standalone mini-campaigns. For a small-scale DLC like this, it means CA doesn't have to spend the additional balancing and play-testing time to fold it into the main campaign without breaking it.

The Warpath teaser video shows Indians charging with lances and tomahawks right into European rifle fire. They probably have firearms too (and I bet that's one reason why guns can now be fired and loaded on horseback in the 1.4 patch, yay Hollywood movies!), but it seems pretty melee-intensive. The new native tech tree probably has some mumbo jumbo to beef up their melee and native ranged weapons, so they can compete on a more level ground with the European colonists... maybe drive them off the continent, if that's the campaign goal.

If that's actually what the mini-expansion is like, then I'm not sure we'd want those Indians added to the grand campaign. They're annoying enough as it is. :)