Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1489 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Paradox Entertainment
• Released on: 2008-10-24
• Rating: To Be Announced
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Number of discs: 1
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: German
• Subtitled in: German
• Dimensions: 2.20 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Delves deeply into the areas of exploration, trade, warfare and diplomacy, is an epic strategy game where players take control of a nation and guide it through the ages to become a great global empire. Unparalleled in its depth and historical accuracy, EU gives players freedom to rule their nation from an impressive choice of over 250 historically accurate countries

Customer Reviews

Market Leader For Grand Strategy
Europa Universalis is the best game in the Grand Strategy market. It takes most countries in existence from 1399 onwards and delivers a changing world based on the interactions between those countries. Each nation can make war, peace, alliances, join personal unions, compete for trade, religious influence, and colonies.

This is not the game for those looking for something quick and easy, or for first rate graphics. EU3 does not provide anything of the sort. It is about the longue duree. Anyone who liked Risk and comes fresh to EU like myself can marvel at how far grand strategy has come.

The EU community also continue to develop the game. I'm really looking forward to trying out the mods that expand on some of the areas of the game that aren't perfect. For instance some of the very inhospitable areas of the world are inaccessible and the trade system doesn't value different types of goods that effectively but with the addition of a mod I'll be able to see the improvements straight away.

The series most similar to Europa Universalis is Civilization. The differences between these two are pretty much about emphasis - Civ is more flashy but EU is more complete. Countries exist at the start of the game and have different strengths and weaknesses - the Mamluks of 1399 have the most manpower while Holland has significant trading expertise for instance. These constructions allow for a fairly realistic game experience. They also provide single player replayabiity as for instance France has many benefits that the new player will want while Georgia faces threats to it's survival from the very start.

As someone with an interest in history, I really enjoyed prising Croatia from the grip of the Ottoman Empire in my first game and watching the Teutonic Knights attempt to survive the expansion of Lithuania. Nothing on the market comes close to matching the historical experience.

Multiplayer is quite difficult. Anyone who has tried to set up marathon Civilization campaigns will know the difficulties involved. Keeping players focussed over a very long time frame is not always easy but the dream of manning the entire world with players competing for influence is one I'll continue to look forward to.

Great Game that will Last!
Europa Universalis 3 is an exceptional game that is the clear leader for the Grand Strategy market. The ethos for the game is to start historically but the endings are unlimited. You can choose any starting point from 1399 to 1800s and whatever date you pick down to the day effects the world map down to real events that happened.
The learning curve is fairly steep and will take a few games to understand how the game works. After this the game comes into its prime with a huge choice of nations available and a flexible AI that makes every game completely different. Some of the best games come from not being one of the super powers at the time (France, Castille, England etc.) but rather a smaller nation and lead them to glory.
The Strategy in the game can be quite deep from tweaking sliders and squeeze the most out of your nations economy to building large armies and marching to war.
The game has the feeling of 2 periods of time, before colonization and after colonization. Before the new worlds are being discovered the action is focused on Europe (unless you pick a nation outside of Europe) but after new lands have been discovered the game takes a different feel, colonies are built and wars engulf the world. Major colony powers grow even larger with the riches that it brings.
The game can at times be frustrating as it can leave you feeling powerless and also there can be periods of time where little happens, but the rest of the game more than makes up for it.

Addictive but Dissatisfying
This game is possibly the most addictive game I've ever played but that doesn't make it the best game I've ever played. It's addictive because it seems to promise so much and keeps you playing to achieve what it seems to promise but ultimately it never satisfies.

As well as being the most addictive game I've ever played its probably also the most complex. In fact its just too complex to to adequately describe here but here's a rough overview. You can control any country in the world between 1399 and 1821 and within that country you have control over many financial, military, religious, trade, and technological aspects. You can war against other nations and conquer provinces, you can colonise unoccupied territories, convert the religion of your provinces, have royal marriages and alliances with other countries and trade in one of the centres of trade. There are missions to be completed which can either be mundane or quite challenging depending on which nation you choose to control. One of the main concepts of the game is "National Ideas" which allows you to gain a big advantage in one particular area and which largely determines your overall strategy. Another concept is that of "Prestige" which gives you certain military and trading advantages and which you can build up by conquering territories and winning battles. "Reputation" is a concept which is basically how badly other countries perceive your nation and which is determined by such things as attacking other countries without just cause and conquering non-core provinces. "Core Provinces" is a concept which basically means those provinces which your country believes to be a fundamental part of its nation and when you do not own all of your core provinces you have a "Casus Belli" on the nation that does. A "Casus Belli" means a just cause for war and if you declare war without one you'll get a worse reputation and your country's stability will drop more. The "Stability" of your country ranges from +3 to -3 and affects your country's income and revolt risk, "revolt risk" means the likelihood of a revolt occurring in a province when a small army of rebels attempts to take control of it. For European countries there is also the Holy Roman Empire(HRE) and Papacy. The HRE is an organisation made up of mainly German and Italian nations who elect a country to protect all those small countries who are members. The Papacy is made up of cardinals from about ten different countries and the country with the most cardinals becomes Papal Controller which basically gives some prestige and reputation advantages and also the ability to excommunicate the leaders of countries who have bad relations with the Papal States.

Although the game is very complex and attempts to depict something massive its ultimately a bit of a let down. The main problem with the game is that there is really only one measure of success and that is how large your country is. The fact that the map is just about the only form of interaction in the game makes this inevitable. The lack of interaction is really the game's biggest flaw, its just so cold, mechanical and charmless that ultimately it will leave you feeling rather dissatisfied with your achievements no matter how great they are. Even if you manage to take a small one province nation to being a global superpower the game just carries on as if nothing happened and when the game finishes all you get is a chronology of events listing, in rather bland fashion, things that happened during the game. So be warned, this game may seem brilliantly promising at first but ultimately it never delivers.