Recent reviews by The Pretender

This game suffers from the same shortcomings as all new PDX 4x titels. Laggy and unstable lategame, especially in multiplayer (making some playthroughs unplayable) . If you a re new to PDX titels, the game feel deep and with a somewhat high learning curve, but once mastered you notice the lack of mechanics and uniform gameplay for each nation, which will be fixed through DLCs down the line.

It does not enter my top 3 PDX games yet, but if you like their other games like EU4, Stellaris, imperator (RIP), then I would recommend it, but give it a year, some patches and a few DLCs to get through the standard PDX "new game" issues.

A great game both that is fun to play with your friends. I does require a few DLCs to be really good, so expect to pay more for them (they are often on sale). but only the host needs them to play which is awesome.

Great multiplayer game with tons of developer support, not just from mods but you also really feel like paradox care about the product, though they do have some hotjoin problems online.
The online community is great, the game it-self is not as strategic like lets say EU4, but with the latest updates it is becoming more and more like a real strategy game, with diverse and fun ways to play the game. If you wanna play online instead of singleplayer I would recommende joining an RP community to start with, as the game is not super balanced. Its a lot more enjoyable than hardcore min/max (at least to me).

Still one of the best total war games, and still very fun and great graphics, despite being old.