Expeditions: Conquistador - Preview @ RPGCodex

RPGCodex has a preview of Expeditions: Conquistador based on their own playing time with a press build.

Expeditions’ plot casts you as a newly embarked explorer in 1518. Pre-empting Cortes' historical overthrow of the Aztec Empire, you arrive in the New World with native civilization still thriving. The interaction between the Aztecs and Spaniards, and the decisions you take over the course of that conflict, appears to form the spine of the plot. All writing is very professionally done, and do a good job of portraying the game setting, being peppered with various references. They are far from spectacular, however. I was never bored or frustrated, but I nevertheless found myself reading through the lines fairly quickly, with no hilarious or memorable gems. My impression from the first few hours was that writing does the job well in the context of the game as a whole, no more and no less.

But what about C&C, Choices and Consequences? It is almost impossible to make a judgment on that at this stage. My conversations with the Spaniards at the starting town did involve several choices, some of which were transparently fake (Do you protest or cooperate? No matter, you have no say anyway), others which appeared to be more cosmetic, and a few which may well have consequences later on. The decisions made in random events and key dialogue events, of course, will have their own gameplay consequences in the loyalty of your followers; a native-loving conquistador will soon find his/her more racist compatriots angry and discontent.