Religion

...restoring the Pentarchy of the Romans? Rome, Thrace, Aleppo, Judea, and Alexandria all brought brought back under Roman control and made Orthodox. That was fun.
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The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

Just to clarify this has nothing against Catholicism. I just immensely enjoy playing historial strategy game and do complete a-historical things. Like the time I made the New-World Viking Colony of Vinland to such power that I controlled all of the Americas and was able to sucessfully return to and conquer to motherland in Europe :p
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The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

link? what are u tlaking about?

Europa Universalis 3(they're actually making 4 right now) It's a paradox game and I would highly recommend it to any strategy fans. You can do crap like this in there:

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/pp151/XRW175P6MQ4/Prussia3_zpsad312a67.jpg

I think WWI would've gone a lot differently with that Prussia.

It's stretches from 1399(a mere 54 year before the Romans finally fell) to 1820.

A hell of a lot of Paradox players are Rome fanboys though so they get a lot of love compared to other should be minor countries represented.

Here's a page they have at paradox:
http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/europa-universalis-iii

Going into the forums would probably get you more info if you're interested.

Edit: And for die hard Catholics or Protestants you can squish the reformation or wipe out Catholics if you wish :)
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The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

It looks interesting... but is it super complex? I am atrocious at games like Civ. I think I've put a hundred hours or more into Civ 4 and I won maybe 5 times.

YES. I also love converting all of Europe from Catholicism.
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"A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

Moorish_Idol posted...

It looks interesting... but is it super complex? I am atrocious at games like Civ. I think I've put a hundred hours or more into Civ 4 and I won maybe 5 times.

Well there's definitely a learning curve. Not as bad as some of their other games like Victoria or Hearts of Iron, but I wouldn't say it's super difficult to learn. Out of their mainline of games, Crusader Kings(1066-1420), EU(1399-1820), Victoria(1820-1936), and Hearts of Iron(1936-umm 1954 I think?), EU is probably the least complex and easiest to get into. And if you like really, really long ass campaigns there are mods that'll convert your finished save from the earlier game to the newer(in terms of the years they take place in), so you can play from 1066 all the way to 1954 should you wish.

When I first started out I just cheated like crazy "montezuma"ed me infinite money(that was the money cheat in 2, 3 is just 'cash" or "gold" don't remember which). I recommend new players do that. That way you can get a hang on the rest of the game before you have to start worrying about balancing your budget and keeping inflation down. Also simply pick a big boy. Don't try to start off as a one province minor. Take France, or England or someone like that(In Europe, it's called Europa Universalis for a reason they get it easy compared to the rest of the world.)

One of the best things I like about this game is there really is no true win. If you just wanna jump in as Brandenburg and form Germany or unite the HRE then do that and you 'won'. I've actually finished(as in played to the end date) paradox games just a few times really. Not even double digits, but I still find it uber fun.

There's a demo out, but as far as I know that demos vanilla. They've made so many improvements over the expansion they're practically different games.

Actually Chronicles ( a pack containing the base game and all expansions) is on sale right now for $13.50.

https://shop.paradoxplaza.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Locale=en_US&SiteID=paradox&id=QuickBuyCartPage

Iamvegito posted...

YES. I also love converting all of Europe from Catholicism.

I never seem to able to do this. Though that might be because of my preference for innovative for the tech bonuses :p
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The food that stands on his [Odin's] table he gives to two wolves of his called Geri and Freki. He himself needs no food; wine is for him both drink and meat.

How did you get a Greek western Europe? I don't think I've ever seen Greece appear since I got Divine Wind. I think DW AI are far more predictable than they were previously.

I love that game, although I usually just play as Hungary, and try to manipulate things so the Byzantine Empire resurges (by kicking the Turks whenever they are vulnerable). I then usually convert to Protestantism to makes things interesting, and take over good chunks of Russia
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A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means - Sallust

Byzantium doesn't need a lot of help in DW. When I played a Wallachia -> Romania game I had to personally end them to get the decision, thanks to the abysmal Ottoman AI.