Played first game in very, very long time, using 1.04.07. Solo campaign as France, heh.
Some observations
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- Naval bug:
If you attempt to move a blockaded fleet into an adjacent sea area with an enemy unescorted transport fleet, and you say "yes, run the blockade", you eat the transport fleet but nothing else happens -- not even loss of movement points, let alone a battle. This should be readily testable as France early on because the British AI blithely moves an unescorted transport fleet right outside the blockade of Amsterdam (and thus within the range of the Dutch fleets).
- Naval rules:
Going by
http://eia.xnetz.com/rules/eiarules-with-errata.html
it would appear that at least in original EiA, if the phasing power has both a fleet in a port being blockaded and a fleet outside, and he moves the outside fleet into the port, *he* has the option of either being intercepted on his way in (and thus a battle without the help of his blockaded fleet, but a chance at the wind gauge), or the option of never being intercepted, joining his fleets, and (if he still has movement points) fighting his way out against the wind gauge. EiANW does not provide this option.
- Turkey, Spain willing to ally with France; Prussia, Austria allied with each other and commonly Russia. Good. It would not have been entirely amiss for Turkey to have periodically asked for a modest bit of financial aid, as money is perpetually the Turks' problem and a Turkish army that can actually move instead of maximizing forage points out of penury is slightly more menacing to Austria and possibly Russia.
Similarly, if the British situation is largely static (British-and-friends fleet tied up blockading French-and-friends fleet), it might not be entirely amiss for the British player to proclaim a bounty on dead Frenchmen...
- Didn't see any unit teleportation, game crashing, hanging; nor did I see enemies blithely co-existing in provinces without battles actually happening. Good. The severe issues with earlier versions were a big, big reason why I preferred to busy myself with other games -- it simply wasn't fun watching critical corps teleport themselves around the board instead of fighting, for instance, or *starting* my land phase with enemy corps blithely sitting in the same non-city locations as my own.
- Limitation: too many units. I was a bit surprised to hit this one, as it suggests to me that the unit limit is /lower/ than it used to be -- yes, I was cheerfully garrisoning every German capital I could and used the entire French (modulo a couple of light fleets) + COTR + Poland stack + other minors, but the North African corps were pretty much still off the board and quite a few other counters had been eliminated (e.g. the entire British and Spanish fleets, the Austrian fleet, the Russian fleet in the Atlantic, a Turkish light fleet, most of the Spanish, Prussian, Austrian and Russian armies...).
- There seemed to be issues where you could 'overgarrison' (over capacity) a just-taken city in enemy territory with a mixed-nation (minors and major) force, but factors would then seemingly vanish. Not just excess ones -- all.
- Portugal was sometimes claimed to have received +1 PP when it participated in my victorious fleet battles. I don't recall other minors doing so, although I sometimes used the Fleet of Fleets (i.e. including representation from every minor with a fleet, other than Venice whose fleet which I hadn't yet rebuilt) and regularly used minor forces in land battles.
- Turkey was willing to go a bit further in North Africa, but "war" with Austria and Russia was mostly war-in-name-only, with the only battle being a Turkish light fleet sinking an Austrian ship northwest of Ireland. Turkey blockaded a Russian fleet in the Black Sea, but otherwise, that was it. Turkish troops in the Russian/Turkish/Austria border region basically didn't move, and were sufficiently dispersed that they could readily have been destroyed in detail had either the Austrians or Russians cared to do so. They weren't even responsive when I chose to backstab them with the aim of raising the whole Ottoman legions (before realizing the unit limit).
- English fleet blockaded Dutch fleet and every French fleet; good. Bad -- it didn't adapt to the Swedish fleet that turned French with a Russian DOW (which didn't lapse, as t Russian AI put a corps right inside the border -- good) and likewise the Portugese fleet. It was a bit messy early on, but I was eventually able to eradicate the entire British fleet in 1806, maybe late 1805. And the Spanish somehow managed to let the Portugese war lapse -- bad, unless this was actually a deliberate (dangerous! a stronger French fleet means less need for the Spanish fleet...) gift to me as their ally. Also bad for UK: they built up their army in Gibraltar (bad, in that Spain hadn't granted audience) and Persia, once Persia became a British minor. Persia's pretty out of the way for the British army, barring a fleet-less war on Turkey which didn't happen.
- Prussia was willing to DoW me in 1805 and Austria made no move to back him up. That's not good for either of them. Instead, Chas. developed an appetite for pasta as doom came to Berlin. *Very* dangerous at that point, with Napoleon on the loose, the British fleet depleted and any survivors busy, the Spanish fleet and Turkish fleets still allied to France, and the Austrian fleet completely incapable of evacuating an Austrian stack from its attack on Naples. Best to worry about France first since Italy can be a nasty trap.
Essentially, outside of ally calls the AIs have no notion of sympathetic DOWs. I didn't call allies against Prussia (not like I could have expected Spain and Turkey to do anything at all against Prussia), therefore no call for Prussian allies, and the Prussian 'allies' chose to stand aside while Prussia was rapidly digested.
- Some interestingly timed surrenders occurred. Spain seemed eager to surrender before I broke into Cadiz to annihilate his fleet. Don't know if that was deliberate. Austria was a bit quick to surrender, but that's not entirely unreasonable when the Russian AI wasn't lifting a finger and the beat-down Prussians were on enforced peace.
- Russia did the usual DOW w/ Sweden, took Abo, and prevented lapse by staying just inside Sweden. It never proceeded any further, however, even once Spring arrived (thus permitting amphibious assaults from St. Petersburg to Stockholm, say). It was willing to back up Austria against France, nominally, but never sent any help, even Cossacks, and probably should have brought his Caucasian reserves westward when I landed my troops in Abo (cutting off from supply the hapless Russian factors still in Sweden, and threatening a march on St. Petersburg -- backed by another force advancing from formerly Prussian territory). In a later war, I was able to take Moscow without the slightest threat to my supply chain -- this is exacerbated by the fact that Karelia can be ceded and with it St. Petersburg -- or to any of my holdings elsewhere.