First Impressions

[Iskar]

Having played a good couple of terms, here's what I think of the game so far, to whomever it may concern:

First of all, this is the first TW game ever I bought right on release. I don't usually do that as I prefer to wait for fixes, game mechanic adjustments and updates, but I was in fact too excited for a setting mostly unbeknownst to me to wait.

I had certain reservations regarding stupid mechanics being carried over from Warhammer (and I'll certainly never play Romance mode) but Records mode does suit my needs for a less heroic and more strategic gameplay. Blowing enemy generals off the field with trebuchets is just too satisfying.

That being said: I am pleasantly surprised at how smooth and entertaining the game plays. I find it an enjoyable TW campaign experience as any other TW game, probably even on par (oh the blasphemy!) with my two favourites Med2 and Shogun2.
Currently I am playing Kong Rong, based on the northwestern coast. I managed to become Duke taking large parts of the north western coast commanderies and maintaining a stable alliance with my good friend Liu Bei. A couple of wars put Sun Jian and that guy north of the Huang He into place and my next plans are to declare on Cao Cao's successor and expand further inland to convexify my holdings. All in all, it provides me with whatever I could wish from TW campaigns.

I'll expand on certain points in detail below.

Diplomacy:
After entirely broken diplomacy in the older titles (Rome, Med2), boring and exploitable diplomacy in the intermediate ones (Empire, Napoleon), actually decent diplomacy destroyed by stupid game mechanics (Shogun 2), way too easy diplomacy with reduced options (Attila, Rome2), I find the diplomacy in this one interesting and challenging, while opening up entire new options for play styles. The pallette of possible agreements, coalitions, pacts, different things to trade and concede, as well as the apparent ability of the AI to handle the system as well and offer and accept reasonable deals makes me spend a considerable amount of time on the diplomacy panel.

Retinues:
With 5 different types of generals all with their specific units to recruit beyond bare militia makes army composition more modular. Where I ended up with a dozen copies of my "ideal army composition" with generals just replaceable figure heads for them, I now find myself actively managing the compositions of generals to complement each other and provide every army with what it needs. Having three different generals contribute to the stats and characteristics of an army also makes army management more interesting.

Characters:
Even in Records Mode generals are formidable fighters, which is fine by me, given they represent the economical and military elite of the land, while not being immune to catapult boulders or a Ji to the head. That characters now form relationships with each other, depending on how they interact and what their principles and characteristics are is also very interesting. It also adds immersion if two generals become friends after fighting side by side in a pitched battle.
A nice change is that women characters can be generals and leaders as well. Some may denounce this as just another SJW policy thrust upon a game, but there really is no such vibe in the game. It is just a nice, relatively subtle "yeah, why shouldn't they?" type of gesture with no flags being waved. Half the people in the country are women and some of them are in power. So what.

Reforms and Troops Trees:
It seems CA learned from previous titles that segmenting the technology tree into "civics", "economy", and "military", made for boring and onesided research patterns. Now military unit unlocks are spread over the research tree according to their affilitation with one of the five main traits, naturally aligning your military development with your research and civil priorities. You prioritise knowledge and education - end up with complicated repeater crossbows, you put weight on land development - end up with down to earth ji and spear defense units, go for military infrastructure and supply lines - end up with offensive cavalry units, and so on.

Sea battles:
Yeah, there are none as far as I can see. They probably thought there couldn't be much new beyond what they did in Shogun 2, and arguably the main conflict takes place on the mainland in this scenario. Given the map I could imagine a sea warfare DLC involving an expansion of the map towards Korea in the north and Indochina in the south, but for the time being I am fully satisfied with the land battles anyway.

Budget:
Economy seems pretty balanced. Taking decisive action in what to build does noticeably increase your income, as do trade agreements, but armies and characters cost enough to counteract this. The old boring "turtle up until you can field ten fullstacks without a dent in the treasury" strategy certainly does not work here and makes balancing military power and economic development another entertaining challenge.

Pace and campaign balance:
Other factions seem to develop at least as well as the player faction. I have encountered some with lots of vassals, some with vast territories or powerful armies. The map feels huge and the game does not feel "finished" as did Attila, Rome 2, or Shogun 2 once you had acquired a certain strategic position to steamroll everything. Alliances are important and power hungry enemies or rebellious vassals may ever declare on you. Progression to power feels well earned and not too fast, which goes hand in hand with a reasonable speed of acquiring better units.

Performance:
So far I've had only one crash in roughly 200 turns and the game runs smoothly on high graphics even on my relatively old laptop (Intel i5 @2,5 GHz, AMD Radeon 340, 8 GB Ram).