Getting hyped for this was a mistake. Multiplayer's pretty good, singleplayer's pretty bad.


PROS:

1) Multiplayer - I never played ranked MP for the original and haven't played public MP in this, so I can't speak to whether the DE's MP is a downgrade or not in that regards. However, given what a pain trying to play casual MP with your friends was in the original AoE III the new version's a marked improvement, as long as you have a small group of people to play with. I also personally like the decision to unlock all cards from the beginning, as it gives you more choices for deck building right from the start - that said, I get that some people miss the leveling-up process (which I found more of a grind, honestly).

2) New civs - More choice! Haven't played the Inca yet but the Swedes are pretty fun (CAROLEAN CHARGES), and more options are always good, though some more effort put into balance would've been nice.


CONS:

1) Bugs - Wow, there are a lot of bugs. I've run into problems with cross-platform MP not working, audio issues, walls not building properly, controls going weird...and those are minor issues relative to some of the other things players have run into (see: file deletion). Oh yeah, and the AI likes to derp a lot (in some ways it's worse than it was in the original version, which is kind of impressive really). This is not a finished game.

2) Inept changes to avoid 'offense' - Revising the campaigns and game as a whole to be more historically accurate/less offensive could've been done well, and some stuff (like renaming the Sioux to Lakota, or the Iroquois to their endonym) is fine. Unfortunately the devs half-arsed it and the end result is embarrassingly bad. Don't waste your time doing the non-Asian Dynasties campaigns in the DE, at least if you have good memories of the original (in which case you're probably an evil imperialist or something, I dunno how these peoples' minds work).

3) Bizarre changes to avoid 'offense' - OH MY GOD THE WORD PLANTATION IS TRAUMATIZING!!!1!!1!11!1!

FINAL RECOMMENDATION: 4.5/10 - Get it on sale for the multiplayer if you have friends to play with. Otherwise get the original version (unless you're emotionally devastated by the words 'plantation', 'colonial', or 'discovery', in which case grow up or go into academic history).

[h1] SUMMARY:[/h1] Getting hyped for this was a mistake. Multiplayer's pretty good, singleplayer's pretty bad. [b] PROS: [/b] [b] 1) Multiplayer - [/b] I never played ranked MP for the original and haven't played public MP in this, so I can't speak to whether the DE's MP is a downgrade or not in that regards. However, given what a pain trying to play casual MP with your friends was in the original AoE III the new version's a marked improvement, as long as you have a small group of people to play with. I also personally like the decision to unlock all cards from the beginning, as it gives you more choices for deck building right from the start - that said, I get that some people miss the leveling-up process (which I found more of a grind, honestly). [b] 2) New civs - [/b] More choice! Haven't played the Inca yet but the Swedes are pretty fun (CAROLEAN CHARGES), and more options are always good, though some more effort put into balance would've been nice. [b] CONS: [/b] [b] 1) Bugs - [/b] Wow, there are a lot of bugs. I've run into problems with cross-platform MP not working, audio issues, walls not building properly, controls going weird...and those are minor issues relative to some of the other things players have run into (see: file deletion). Oh yeah, and the AI likes to derp a lot (in some ways it's worse than it was in the original version, which is kind of impressive really). This is not a finished game. [b] 2) Inept changes to avoid 'offense' - [/b] Revising the campaigns and game as a whole to be more historically accurate/less offensive could've been done well, and some stuff (like renaming the Sioux to Lakota, or the Iroquois to their endonym) is fine. Unfortunately the devs half-arsed it and the end result is embarrassingly bad. Don't waste your time doing the non-Asian Dynasties campaigns in the DE, at least if you have good memories of the original (in which case you're probably an evil imperialist or something, I dunno how these peoples' minds work). [b] 3) Bizarre changes to avoid 'offense' - [/b] OH MY GOD THE WORD PLANTATION IS TRAUMATIZING!!!1!!1!11!1! [b] [u] FINAL RECOMMENDATION:[/u] [/b] 4.5/10 - Get it on sale for the multiplayer if you have friends to play with. Otherwise get the original version (unless you're emotionally devastated by the words 'plantation', 'colonial', or 'discovery', in which case grow up or go into academic history).