Recent reviews by Player 1

well worth the money

Worse UI + graphics/ colors compared to his predecesor. Sadly none of the new factions bring something truly unique to be worth buying.
its a pass

Also CA DLC practices are among the greediest in the industry...I paid 30 for the full game...do they think I will spend 28 on a DLC containing 12 units...pfff

worth it

Italy is fun as hell now...They got focuses that have real impact in the game. However, there is too many stability and war support penalties for losing non-core territories. Italian civil war is bugged as hell. Also, air focuses of every nation need to be reworked since the changes to the air designer...I cant believe they were not updated with this 20$ expansion....ALSO GIVE BELLA CIAO TO ALL WHO BOUGHT THE GAME. I NEVER PREORDER DLC MUCH LESS PARADOX DLC

WHERE IS MY PREORDER SONG PARADOX..

Best DLC in AOE3 history.

Both Hausa and Ethiopia bring a whole new set of mechanics to the game and enormous amount of replaybility.
1)brand new unique hero abilities and bonuses.
2)Whole new cattle system and influence ressources that allows to boom and build faster. European and asian units can also be recruited with influence
3)the MAPS, the lovely and fun looking maps.

you need to buy coins to get expansion... a shady market price. Also, if you buy games, you cannot play with your friends for free. You only have "custom" game to play for free, its a shame.... 0/10

8/10
Singleplayer: fun campaigns, not too much into historical battles.

Multiplayer issues:
1) Poor UI and and limited options for casual rank
The new UI is cluncky, you need too many clicks to do what you could easily do before in AOE3 Legacy. Ranked games are the only thing that matters for your statistics, people playing causal games will not benefit from a decent ranking system. Treaty players have suffered a great deal since they do not like to auto-queue agaisnt random players as they want to organize fair matches.

2) Perfomance issues
This game does not perform well on low-medium tier pcs. You need a monster to run it at max setting without any frames or fps drops. However, I will admit that patch that came out with the African DLC greatly improved stability and perfomance.

POSITIVE
1-brand new african civs with the most fun mechanics
2-free USA dlc that was fun but a little pale in comparaison.
3-New maps added since DE have been the most balanced and fun to play. I have not and will not play older maps :)

10/10 a masterpiece for all of those who love strategy games

OVERPRICED CRAP! for real, half of the focuses for spain and fascist France have no real effect on the game (perhaps because they werent tested properly).

My biggest dissapointement was Spain because it had so much potential. Sure, Spain just won a bloody civil war and yet they still have to deal with resistance issues...like come on, by the time you are done restablishing your cores, its too late and your industry cannot match any major faction. early game=fun /late game=just watch because u cannot do anything, join the axis and the allies will kick your ass, join the allies and Panzer will march to Madrid before your allies get there.

Espionnage= a bad, empty and repetitive system that gives major factions too much power.
Spies are boring, take too long to complete their mission and if they do succeed, their operations have little effect.
Counterespionnage= somehow you never know how many are operating in your country, what their goals are, and ultimately how to efficiently reduce it. Sure you can upgrade your counter intelligence but you cannot do anything actively for it.

OVERALL=5/10 price too high for a buggy dlc.