Lots of fun, but as others have said be prepared for the problems. You do *need* patches to make it work and even then you can expect regular crashes. For me it crashes about ever 5th change of location which towards the end of the game means a lot. The greatest frustration for me was almost at the end discovering that somehow the next quest wouldnt trigger and I was left with a random assortment of saves with no idea which might after hours of gameplay work or perhaps also not. Gave up with about 80 hours in. Sad.
Not many games cover this period (total war is the other one thats popular) and the game is basically good however I have two problems. The game crashes fairly often, which is annoying with battles that might last half an hour or more (yes, you can save, but it still takes the fun out). The other thing that drives me mad is that some of the units, specifically grenadiers seem to be impossible to use effectively. Grenadiers are a key building attacking unit and ordering them to do so seems incredibly buggy, I cant say how many times I have had grenadiers deciding to lob grenades at some random peasant walking around instead of the massive gun turret kicking 7 shades out of them or instead of attacking it they walk up to it and form a line around it. Yeah, key G, or use delete to select the target. Doesnt seem to work :(
