As soon as I ran through the 4 win conditions and realized what those outcomes implied for the “what if” of history, I was hooked. It really is brilliant. The Indians are in no way shape or form “allies” with the British. They just want to blunt the speed at which the Europeans are penetrating into the interior. If they can help a bunch of Red Coats who will eventually go home, kill off a bunch of locals and keep the frontier from expanding…that’s a win.

The French don’t give a shit about anything except embarrassing the British. For them, and for the rest of the world…this is just a continuation of a war they’ve been fighting (and mostly losing) for a couple generations at this point. To stay relevant on the world stage they need to tweak the nose of the British Empire…and don’t really care about the fate of the colonies beyond that.

And for the patriots…all the freedom and liberty in the world doesn’t mean shit, if they have the natives breathing down their neck. They’d be relegated at best to a minor player on the world stage like so many Latin American countries if they can’t exploit the entire interior of the continent…which they can’t do unless they get rid of the people who live there. So defeating the British is important…but not more important than continuing the frontier expansion that happened during the prequel (a side show to a global conflict that almost noone else cared about or even remembers).

So good. It captures the whole trade off so beautifully. I can’t wait to play it.