Two of my most highly anticipated sequels announced some landmarks today.

Medieval 2: Total War has gone gold, and will be on store shelves next week – suggesting that the gold status was in fact some time ago, unless they have some magic game making machine. IGN has been posting national profiles at a furious rate, the latest only yesterday. Creative Assembly has yet to disappoint with this series – the three Total War games have each been among the best games in their respective years. Stay tuned for my reflections on Medieval 2.

Paradox has also set the release date for Europa Universalis III. On January 23, 2007, you will have 250 countries and over three hundred years of history at your disposal. At least if you’re American. Our European brothers-in-arms will have to wait a few more days.

The things I’ve been seeing and reading on the official game forum already far outstrips what I have in front of me on the preview beta they sent out a couple of months ago. It looks better and some more basic functionality seems to be in place. I still have some serious misgivings about the direction they are going with historical/ahistorical monarchs and leaders (having them for the start of a game, but randomly generating them for the remainder of the campaign) since this is such a break from the EU model. But so much other stuff has been added that ten weeks won’t be able to fly by fast enough. And the Collector’s Edition is only fifty bucks.