TWWH2 ended its life cycle in a very, very good state. Its fans loved it, and were perfectly willing to keep throwing money at it. CA had to just keep doing what they were doing, and they would have been making bank for years to come.

Instead, TWWH3 was released resembling a polished turd meant to appeal to journalists and casual players who would play no more than 10 hours, and move on to something else. The new campaign was shallow and tiresome, multiple things working perfectly well in TWWH2 were downgraded (unit responsiveness, AI, graphics...), fun interactions were removed for balance reasons (in a mostly single-player game!), and issues present in previous iterations for years were not addressed or made even worse (the settlement assault rework, tonnes of bugs...).

The release of Immortal Empires for free to all owners of TWWH3 made me forgive CA a lot of this stuff. It seemed they were working hard to remedy their mistakes, and recover their reputation. Sure, "Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs" was overpriced, but the DLC itself was excellent and fun as hell, so I didn't mind paying extra. The road map looked very promising, and I was looking forward to supporting the game that I had come to love despite its flaws.

However, the recent blog post crossed the line. The veiled threat that if fans don't buy the DLC after its 150% price increase, CA will take TWWH3 to the backyard, shoot it, and bury it next to TW3K, was too much. I call your bluff, CA. Please, slaughter your cash cow, I dare you. You will be left with "Pharaoh" (which is most likely going to sell as poorly as "Troy"), and the appropriately named "Hyenas" (which no one asked for).

"Shadows of Change" will be the first DLC in years that I won't be buying on release. Partly because it doesn't look worth its price, partly because I don't want to support a company that doesn't respect its customers...

TWWH2 ended its life cycle in a very, very good state. Its fans loved it, and were perfectly willing to keep throwing money at it. CA had to just keep doing what they were doing, and they would have been making bank for years to come. Instead, TWWH3 was released resembling a polished turd meant to appeal to journalists and casual players who would play no more than 10 hours, and move on to something else. The new campaign was shallow and tiresome, multiple things working perfectly well in TWWH2 were downgraded (unit responsiveness, AI, graphics...), fun interactions were removed for balance reasons (in a mostly single-player game!), and issues present in previous iterations for years were not addressed or made even worse (the settlement assault rework, tonnes of bugs...). The release of Immortal Empires for free to all owners of TWWH3 made me forgive CA a lot of this stuff. It seemed they were working hard to remedy their mistakes, and recover their reputation. Sure, "Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs" was overpriced, but the DLC itself was excellent and fun as hell, so I didn't mind paying extra. The road map looked very promising, and I was looking forward to supporting the game that I had come to love despite its flaws. However, the recent blog post crossed the line. The veiled threat that if fans don't buy the DLC after its 150% price increase, CA will take TWWH3 to the backyard, shoot it, and bury it next to TW3K, was too much. I call your bluff, CA. Please, slaughter your cash cow, I dare you. You will be left with "Pharaoh" (which is most likely going to sell as poorly as "Troy"), and the appropriately named "Hyenas" (which no one asked for). "Shadows of Change" will be the first DLC in years that I won't be buying on release. Partly because it doesn't look worth its price, partly because I don't want to support a company that doesn't respect its customers...