Does this ruin all the good components of the video game? Or make them playable?

This is the closest board game yet to the video game. I have the last attempt by eagle games and it blows.

This game differs in a few areas:

Tech development. A tech pyramid system is used where you must have two level one to get a level two. ect. unlike the video game that specific prerequisites for most techs. Research uses trade points. Most tech development is immediate if you can afford it and you have a place on you tech pyramid. You don't choose a tech and then have to wait on it.

Combat: video game is click and done. the board game solution is a rock paper scissors concept that is very efficient and more in depth than the video game. A reminder that took our group a little while to grasp, the combat bonus from generals and barracks only applies to the battle field resolution not individual fronts. Unit bonuses apply to the unit card until battle field resolution.

Exploring: Very similar and well done. Only improvement may have been to use small hexagons vs the orthogonal grid squares.

No road use.

No real navy. with the right tech you can move armies across water. later techs allow you to stop armies on a water square.

Overall a very good game!!

I don't like the lack of allocation of army cards to army units. Its completely ramdom, and allows a person with many figures to have only a small number of cards. I'd like to see specific allocation of units/card to figures on the board.