I purchased this fourteen years ago from Matrix Games. I had long hoped for a computer version of this game and I wanted to like the computer version, but it was a complete unplayable mess. Rules that simply did not work, an AI that was completely insane, none of the scenarios implemented, multiplayer did not work, etc. It should never have been released in its condition. Well, over the years new patches have been forthcoming, and periodically I fire it up only to find that the game is better, but still not playable, at least by me. Now a major recent effort to fix the game has been completed and it is being released again by Matrix Games:
I will apply the patch and try the game again and report back. I am not overly optimistic but I do appreciate all the effort given over the past fourteen years to make the game playable.
Now my old installation won’t function. (Thank you Avast!) The Matrix store doesn’t recognize my serial number, saying I already redeemed it although it does not show up on My Page in the Matrix store. Infuriating! I will deal with this tomorrow. The joys of getting old games up and running.
Yeah, I still have ancient games from stores like Battlefront and Shrapnel Games laying around that will never be run again, for precisely this reason. Even games with CDs sometimes won’t run due to activation issues, etc.
Luckily I have far more games in my library of stuff than I have time to play anyhow.
That sucks. This was one of those board games that I absolutely loved, but only managed to convince people to play a handful of times (and never to completion).
While it isn’t anything approaching a 1:1 replacement, have you tried the Europa Universalis video games? EU2 felt so close to me at the time that I would have put on money on it being inspired by EIA.
EU4 branches off in different directions, but is one of my favorite games.
It looks like EU4 is free this week in the Epic Store for the base game.
