Well, at least could it be done so that in those countries that will have the English version (Scandinavia, Finland and other small countries) it's published at the same time. I can understand why you want to have translated versions for languages like German, Italian, French and Spanish, because of the large populations, but the rest of us get screwed royally just because somebody doesn't hire a competent translator and it gets delayed. 3DO published HoMM3 just two days later in Europe than in the States, and they had the text on the boxes printed in Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and English at that time.
We're not in any hurry to get an Italian or Spanish version of the game here in the North anytime soon, because we learn English as a second language at school, and if somebody from central Europe really wants to take the time to come all the way here to buy the game at an extortionate price because they want it sooner, let them. But I don't see why we have to suffer because somebody else wants the extra service of having the game in their language.
It's just that if it works (supposedly) like it should have last time, I really don't have my hopes up. After three broken promises from Take2, I gave up. I was lucky to get the game only two months late, in January, because a local game store got a shipment of the US release almost by accident, but it took me until late May to get over the feelings of resentment and disappointment so that I could actually start playing the game without feeling a wall of anger build up at the mere thought. Once I got past that point, I played AoW for six months solid without doing much else. If they make a repeat of that fiasco, they're not winning any converts here. I also remember a lot of similar feelings from the Swedes here, because for them it's the same problem. But this time around I won't wait if Take2 screw things up at this end, I'll probably ask Darkspider or Caber or somebody else in the States to buy a copy and send it to me and I'll send them the money.
All in all, Take2 might be paying for AoW2, but considering their track record of incompetence here in Europe (I've heard enough about other games from people I know), it's what they owe us for their past behavior. I'm not inclined to forget (or forgive) what happened with AoW1, so they'll have to prove they can do better. I'm not holding my breath, however.
Edi