Europa Universalis III

"Feels somewhat shallow in comparison to the prequel."

The Europa Universalis series has always been synonymous with the grand strategy genre; and their developers Paradox Interactive have seemed to have a hand in making high quality grand strategy games, even before their videogames began to appeal to the English-speaking audience. Europa Universalis has generally chronicled the rise and fall of European empires, detailing their expansion, enlightenment, and colonisation over several hundred years. The latest installment in the series appears to be a step back, unfortunately. A simplification of Europa Universalis III, is to call it the prequel, with a facelift to the game, some minor tweaks to the general gameplay engine, and a new, more ahistorical "forge your own destiny" direction.

For the most part, gameplay is the same. You have your array of Diplomats, Traders, Missionaries, and Colonists. But joining the battle is a new agent type; that of the Spy. Your Spies will allow you to perform covert operations against your enemies, which range from damaging their prestige, to inciting rebellions in their provinces. It's a lovely addition, but it's also broken in the same way. The cost to send a spy can be roughly fifty ducats, or up to two hundred ducats for the more expensive options, and they all have a very low chance to work (sometimes as low as a percent or two, which really makes you begin to question their use). This gives them a very specific role; you'll either use certain Spy actions, or you won't use them at all. They also do a very good job of exposing the broken AI, too. Who'd have known that a nation that raises roughly twenty or so ducats a years, would be saving up in order to spam your nation with spies? Only those that want to play the big-powers with a generous money-spending policy will frequently use them, but they are still a neat addition. Colonists have had a bit of a change. Their job is now made a whole lot easier, due to a muh easier chance to colonise. I've also noticed Natives will attack you more frequently if you try and enter their provinces, but it is easier to put them down. But the thing that breaks colonising, is the spread of discoveries. As a European power, it seems you'll be discovering provinces that your neighbours are exploring mere years after they discover them. As a non-European power, you'll suddenly find at a certain point, that you'll be discovering a batch of provinces each month. Because of this, colonisation becomes incredibly easy to the point where it become a little side-project that you throw your small amount of colonists at and make incredible profits from it. As a human player focusing on colonisation, you can colonise a fair bit of North America before France or Spain can even land a ship in the New World, and it's not uncommon to be seeing a country like Portugal sending off colonists in the first ten years. The other three remain basically the same.

Another thing that truly made Europa Universalis II unique, were the events. While some felt intimidated, and even frustrated by the fact that at times, it made you feel like the game was forcing you to play specific way depending on country, but it was the effort that counted, and it made you feel like the developers really payed attention to us. Paradox has taken a new direction with Europa Universalis III; both in the fact that there are no longer historical events, and that there is now a "lucky nation" system in place. In the prequel, it would generally be the same nations rising up in the same patterns again and again. Now, the basic idea, is that with Lucky Nations, eight pre-chosen nations will gain slight bonuses, that are enough to make them the stronger nations, to provide a good late-game challenge. This is a great system, in theory, but it is marred by the fact that these nations are generally the same ones, so it feels like a half-arsed version of the non-Lucky Nation system in Europa Universalis II. I wouldn't have so much of a gripe if we saw some totally unexpected rise of the Mantuan Empire, but instead, we always get the typicals. And as for events, they too are broken in their own way. Random events will fire depending on your government. If you are very decentralised, the peasants may call for a reform. But there is no sense of scale to any of these events. You may have the option to pay 30 ducats to suppress a rebellion. This isn't a problem for dear old France, who may make 200 ducats a year, but for little Yemen who makes 9 ducats a year, this'll pose a severe problem. As a random regiment of rebels ravage your land, you mighty finally defeat them. Only in the time it's taken, you've gotten nowhere in the first five years of play. Some may enjoy this difficulty; but the spikes in this game can be relatively ridiculous at times. Fortunately, the patches seem to remedy the majority of the problems. Fortunately, there are still unification events, and they work in that once you have the necessary provinces, there will be a number of days until you get a unification option, which occurs faster if you have more specific provinces, or the Bureaucracy National Idea.

Perhaps the biggest additions to the game, are National Ideas & Advisors. The former are basically ideas that you promote to your nation, specialising them and making them more unique from the next one. This is a great addition, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be extremist enough. These bonuses are recognisable, mostly because they aren't like changing a policy slider, where the bonuses are graudally recognised. Here, you get a moderate bonus all in one. It's nice, but you can only seem to see the effects when you have them. Burgundy with land-based national ideas won't seem much different from Burgundy with naval-based national ideas. Alternatively, some of these ideas don't seem to do much at all. It is perfectly viable to become a colonial power without any colonial ideas, which is interesting when you don't have to do any exploration at all. It would have been nicer if these ideas caused greater effects; something which is emphasised in various mods. At the end of the day, it is a good addition. As for the minor tweaks of the game. In terms of diplomacy, alliances have had some changes. Now, the strongest country in an alliance will be leading it. From a logical standpoint, this may not make sense. From a gameplay standpoint, this can be very beneficial if you are a strong power with many weaker allies. But it also increases the gap between strong powers, and weak powers. Advisors will also help shape your nation in a more passive way. You can hire three advisors of varying abilites; they may give you more merchants per year, or they may increase your prestige. Nice little boosts, for small amounts of ducats per year.

But what of the music? Instead of the great themes present in the prequel, such as the ever glorious Falalan, we are presented with some generic booming "fantasy classical" music. Which sounds nice, I'll admit, but as said, it's very generic, and sadly lacking compared to previous music. As for the overall running of the game, it's fairly stable. The occasional crash running it in Vista, but nothing you won't see for any game. There are some dodgy issues with regiments; for examples, navies that have zero ships in them, and sometimes a bit of slow-down after mass pop-ups or end of year incomes, but it runs fairly stable otherwise. The game itself has some Gameplay issues, so get the patches as soon as possible. Fortunately, Paradox Interactive like to look after their players. The Console Launcher for the game lets you buy the expansions (Advertising ftw), but also patch quite easily, which is convenient, and a step in the right direction for developers. There is also a dedicated mod community, and lots of help available on the forums.

But what about replayability and length? It takes a couple of hours to finish a game of Europa Universalis, and this is on the fastest setting, provided you are playing the Grand Campaign (Spanning from the Fall of Constantinople, to the start of the French Revolution), and that's just one game. There is a fair bit of difference between games, so if you are into Grand Strategy games, you may find it very fun to be replaying the game due to the new ahistorical direction it has taken. For those who haven't had an introduction to the Grand Strategy game; what better place to start? Europa Universalis III is a lot more "newb friendly" than the previous games, and there is a pretty neat tutorial packaged with the game. For the more hardcore, once the vanilla gets boring (which will probably be quite quickly), there are the expansions which add much more features and "polish" to the core game, and a plethora of very well-made mods. All accessible from the forums. Overall, I would recommend this game to strategy fans. Age of Empires it is not, and it certainly caters to a small niche of gamers who like depth with their strategy. Victoria it is not, and it still remains "newb friendly" to beginners. A fair buy, should ye ask me, but one that should not be without the patches and expansion.

Overall: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/08

Game Release: Europa Universalis III (AU, 02/24/07)