I'm not going to defend ETW, but the diplomacy is at least as good as, if not a little better than, M2TW. At least thus far, alliances seem to actually count for something. Ally with a faction in M2TW and your guaranteed to be backstabbed exactly fifty turns later, like clockwork.
And it's not as if there aren't random DoWs in M2TW. They're less irritating in M2TW because only the other major factions can DoW. If you replaced all the M2TW rebel factions with ETW-style minors, I have little doubt that you'd see the same BS.
Complain all you want about ETW, but the first six months of M2TW was as bad or worse. And I still have a full stack of Milanese just meandering around Zaragoza without doing anything but getting in the way.
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