Well I thought I would throw this out here for what it’s worth. This is no guide on how to play. I jumped into this game like most with the pre-release and the DLC trying to get the full game experience but was disappointed like most. I just completed the Grand Campaign as the Austrians. I started this the game after the RTI and the 1.2 patch came out. I just wanted to explore the map and see what the game would do. I stopped and started because of the information I was reading in the Parliament. There are a lot of great players and I respect the opinions of those that took the time to post about the game. I am not one for detail and appreciated the ability of members picking up on the game mechanics and sharing their findings. I am also not one that can use a body guard unit and take out an AI army I usually play a rockem sockem style till the last man standing. Usually it’s me and not the AI!
As I mentioned I played the RTI and had a very stable platform the only issue was the merge bug in the settlement that gave me my only CTD. I continued with the save again after 1.3 to see the changes again a couple turns but I wasn’t seeing much of what was being posted about the diplomacy DoW was an issue with members. I really got back in to it with the 1.4 then 1.5 updates. I am putting out my observations for anyone still sitting on the fence about the game.
I must add there are issues especially the Battle AI and some of the Campaign AI but it did a lot of neat stuff too.

Diplomacy
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First the diplomacy is off trying to get agreements and can be annoying trying to complete a simple agreement and eventually end up not getting any agreement. as the game progress little diplomacy was initiated by me.
The main issue mentioned was the DoW, it was not in the game from the AI. I started my war with Venice and Genoa and was left alone by everyone else. Prussia and Poland fought it out till Prussia’s demise in 1790. I was watching the diplomacy rating and could see numbers go down. Eventually I was at war with Spain because of land issues in Italy. It started as a Succession War and France was the ally. Unfortunately a peace could not be obtained I did with France for a few turns but they eventually jumped back into it. They were the 4 nations I remained at war with for the game. The Ottoman’s became allies and the Martha Confederacy ran away with the prestige points. Though eventually we became neighbours I guess I could have gone after them for victory conditions. Overall I was satisfied with DoW being reasonable and some of the diplomacy.It would be nice to utlize the minor nation to aid in your cause but them seemed to independent and really did little in the game.


Economy
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Now having the automatic patches the game save worked and were not interfered with but I don’t know if that hampered with some of the economic bugs. It could be the faction I was using but I was following the basic guide to build the economy.
This was a huge issue in my game for me. I could never generate more than 8000 a turn I did set up trade and grabbed some trade nodes but I found my cash was either, to spend it on an army or infrastructure but not both. It was a vicious cycle and I could not increase the income, in fact it was reduced when the trade routes were lost or blocked. Any military success could not be followed up because the army would be decimated and require time to rebuild. I would skip a turn just to build some cash flow and go on a spending spree.
Also with the economics the advisors telling me to improve farms in a region but they were all upgraded the highest level including the roads. To the best of my knowledge I could not create new farms. Is it possible to create new farms?? The other issue later in the game I did not have the money to upgrade industries to their full potential because of cost involved.


Battles
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There were some interesting battles. I can’t elaborate on the naval because I utilized it very little and what I did I was bad at it. I need a lot of work in naval combat. As for the land battles the AI as its issues which are well documented but there were some real nice set ups and memorable battles. The one issue and the only other CTD were defending a star fort which is a waste of money to build. I went through the battle twice half way through the first it crashed and the second attempt it crashed at the save after the victory. No more battles done in a star fort and no more were ever built in the game; there was no value.
What I did like was the naval invasions. The Venetians tried for Rome on 3 occasions forcing me to keep it guarded. I did get regions to surrender without a shot fired. Unfortunately the AI would look like it was going somewhere and then just fall apart. I gave the AI far too much credit by keeping units in areas for defenses


Conclusion
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To end I can say that I was enjoying myself and I hope you found some of this useful if you are looking at playing. The game platform was stable there are lots of little things that should be fixed but overall the game is playable. I am the Turtle type player instead of the Blitzer. If you wait too long and the economy is not going then you will have a hole you can’t climb out of to capture the required regions. I will continue to play starting another campaign and possible commit to an AAR but I it would really be nice to get the known issues cleaned up with another patch or the mod tools released for those members that can get into the game and tweak it for a far better gaming experience.