I love it. It was exactly what I had hoped for. The period is just perfect for the whole game mechanics, and it'll allow CA to get away from the paper-scissors-rock system that's not exactly realistic and in my opinion doesn't make much sense from a gameplay point-of-view either.

Imagine: We will get a map of the whole world, be able to conquer it, bring it under our rule. We can send whole continents into ruin or make them thrive on our whim. We will finally be able to fight naval battles, and experience all the new tactics that are introduced there, and in real, disciplined gunpowder battles.
If we're lucky, CA will even finally include a support mechanism (maybe optional) which would also open up a completely new huge batch of gameplay decisions.

The period introduced the first truly global empires, the industrial revolution and colonization with all their good and bad points. And it's a brand new setting. I know a lot of you wanted to see another stick-and-blade game, but this is much more interesting in my opinion.

CA couldn't have made a better decision.