[EU3] europa universalis III

**Lemming69** · August 25, 2009, 03:32 PM

dunno if this is the right place to ask but is europa universalis 3 worth getting? is it a step down from total war?
from what ive seen so far it looks quite good- a map which covers the whole world and hundreds of factions and the ability to start the campaign at any date between the 1300s and 1820... does anyone have it?

**Killerbee** · August 25, 2009, 04:12 PM

Nope , not the right place

Aradan !! Get in here !

**ccllnply** · August 25, 2009, 05:26 PM

Originally Posted by Lemming69

dunno if this is the right place to ask

You've got that bloody right.

How?

**Spartan262** · August 25, 2009, 06:05 PM

Wrong Place to ask , but the game is okay ecspecially if yo like that era in Time.

**D.B. Cooper** · August 25, 2009, 07:58 PM

We have a forum for EU3 and other Paradox Games, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=320

It's much much deeper strategically than TW. The battles are lacking though.

**Lemming69** · August 26, 2009, 02:50 AM

thanks guys

**Lysimachus** · August 26, 2009, 02:53 AM

Even though I got banned from the Paradox Interactive forum and should feel resentment, I say you get it. The other aspects of the game make up for the non-existance of "epic battles" even if I have never ever finished a game

The furthest I got was the 1700s with a unified Germany ...

**Aradan** · August 26, 2009, 10:52 AM

Moved.

**Huberto** · September 14, 2009, 09:55 PM

I would not recommend EU III. There are some historical concepts in the game but don't expect it to play like history or even feel like history. If I recall correctly, the game starts at the end of the 14th Century but there is little besides the starting political map that has to do with the 14th Century. For example, Britain starts with a huge navy as if it were the 18th Century.

EU III can be challenging and addictive but step away from the game for for a moment and appreciate its incredible blandness, with little in the game to distinguish factions from one another. You will gradually get bigger simply by avoiding big mistakes like being too aggressive. If helping that process along somewhat by carefully managing sliders, etc. is your thing get this game. I found this tedious and the battles especially disappointing, simplistic in the extreme. The beaten AI force often retreats deeper into your territory, so you will spend a lot of time chasing it deeper into your territory and fighting again until the force is entirely eliminated.

As the decades pass by, you will notice France getting bigger and bigger, but the AI can't or won't band together try to to stop it, for some reason. There is however a 100% a-historical solution to this problem involving all-cavalry armies, scorched earth military tactics and triggering revolts through espionage. I found that the problem of France and lack of AI response really is at the center of this game. If you like the idea of a goofy mechanics in response then this game is for you. Obviously I found it to be anti-immersive because the game is supposedly about Renaissance Europe.

For every good concept (such as cultural areas and core provinces) there plenty of silly concepts to match. Honestly, it's harder to play but at bottom is it really that much more complex than ETW would be if its AI was cleaned up a bit?

**Kanaric** · September 15, 2009, 09:04 AM

Honestly, it's harder to play but at bottom is it really that much more complex than ETW would be if its AI was cleaned up a bit?

Yes

With what you are complaining about it sounds like you should of tried some mods like MMP.

**Yoda Twin** · September 15, 2009, 07:55 PM

I love it in EU3 when things turn out differently such as a massive Norway or India being united in 1500 ad.

**Huberto** · September 16, 2009, 07:10 AM

Originally Posted by Yoda Twin

I love it in EU3 when things turn out differently such as a massive Norway or India being united in 1500 ad.

I hear ya, but where is the soul in this game? By contrast, when I'm playing CIV IV and I'm dealing with a powerful foe, I hate them. In this game, even France is just a big blue blob.

**cenkiss** · September 16, 2009, 08:33 AM

Well,you never know what will happen in this game.In one of my games.Karaman has taken advantages of ottoman rebbelions.And gained big territories.In other game karaman got easily owned by mamluks.

**Huberto** · September 16, 2009, 12:23 PM

OK over the next few months I will reinstall the game, add MMP and give it a go. Any other ideas or suggestions to jazz up the game while letting history in at the same time?

**Musthavename** · September 16, 2009, 01:02 PM

Seriously, where would be the fun in the game if it followed history everytime? Sure, there's things like all-cavalry armies and the like, but I love seeing different nations rise to prominence amongst other ahistorical things.

**Huberto** · September 18, 2009, 01:22 PM

I don't think the game should "follow" History as much as "feel like" History. I found EUIII gets to be too mechanistic after a while, if I wait x years I can start another war or sign x alliance. For all their faults, ETW and MTW2 have a little more "feel" to them -- some of it graphical sure but some of it having to do with bits information provided and military matters in the game. The military part of the EU III is pretty goofy yet it's still as important as any other aspect of the game.

**Darkarbiter** · September 18, 2009, 06:59 PM

Play MMP

Fixes everything. Pretty sure Britain actually did have a big navy at that time btw. It's also realistic for France to do well, they were quite powerful in history.

You can hardly critisize it for historical accuracy when it's 4x or more accurate than total war. It's impressive how in many instances regions do actually go like history... simply because of the mechanics of the game, not even because of hardcoded things (e.g. certain factions winning in areas because of advantages in government types or policies etc), even then, usually only goes historical 1/4 of the time and the other 3/4 of the time is at least plausible. I'll agree RTW has a lot more atmosphere, maybe m2tw for a while, but that wears out after a while. but basically, RTR/FATW/Caius's the Crusades definitely all still have their place in my gaming time for slightly different reasons, and hell the RTW BI campaign was actually pretty fun without battles too because of that interesting hording dynamic. However there's no doubt EU3 is better than m2tw or ETW though.

**Huberto** · September 19, 2009, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by Darkarbiter

Play MMP

Fixes everything. Pretty sure Britain actually did have a big navy at that time btw. It's also realistic for France to do well, they were quite powerful in history....
You can hardly critisize it for historical accuracy when it's 4x or more accurate than total war. It's impressive how in many instances regions do actually go like history... simply because of the mechanics of the game, not even because of hardcoded things (e.g. certain factions winning in areas because of advantages in government types or policies etc),

The reason I'm [hopefully not] ranting about this is that I feel other folks spin a story line about EUIII that isn't quite true -- that it's realistic, historical, and complex, in any case way, way better and richer experience than TW or any other game out there. I come from the old world of boardgames, so I've spent lot's of time with history and realism in games, albeit mainly focused on military. Anyway I love the idea of EU III, TW and CIV games.

Historically speaking, when Henry VIII became King in 1491 -- almost a hundred years deep into the EUIII timeline -- the Royal Navy had 15 ships. England's navy in 1400s was focused on transporting troops back and forth across the channel, not completely dominating the coasts of Europe, but that's what they do in EU III.

In the two games I played, France gobbled up Burgandy (historical), the Netherlands (not historical), chewed their way into the Rhineland and deep into the German States of the HRE -- never opposed by anything other than the unfortunate victim of the moment or Cleves as the HQ of the HRE. Once England lost it's territories on the Continent they couldn't be brought into war with France despite their incredible naval strength. This all developed in the game by the early 1500's. Spain loved them, Austria loved them, no one could be brought into alliance against them (I was Denmark).

How to stop the Big Blue Blob -- there must be something I was doing wrong? So I checked the paradox forums and learned about the scorched earth, all-cavalry, spies-trigger-revolt, gambit to bring down France. I thought to myself -- this is kind of a dumb mechanic to deal with expansionist France, which was whole issue in my game and many other games, as I learned reading posts on the paradox forum.

I had assumed there might be cultural resistance to France in the low countries or German states, but there wasn't. I assumed diplomacy would work and the great kingdoms of Europe would turn against France but none of them did. France was simply going to steamroll me and everyone else unless I ramped up my espionage research and deployed all-cavalry armies to stop them. That's when I quit and uninstalled the game, 'cause I've got CIV IV for that kind of experience.

But like I said, I'll give it another go with the MMP mod installed. You mentioned "certain factions winning in areas because of advantages in government types or policies.." While I understood from the manual about culture and religion, I didn't know that certain parts of the world favor government types and policies. Sounds interesting. Can you give me an example using Europe?

**Darkarbiter** · September 19, 2009, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by Huberto

While I understood from the manual about culture and religion, I didn't know that certain parts of the world favor government types and policies. Sounds interesting. Can you give me an example using Europe?

Well I meant more just countries do well/historically because of game rules. For instance in the russian situation the russian powers win against the golden horde/kazan etc because of inevitable tech advantages and because of those powers have the administrative effeciancy penalties. If this was total war they would've just gone and bandaided it and just made the kazani regions poorer. Or look at the holy roman empire, total war would never even dream if modelling something so complex.

ALSO, I don't think countries being hard coded to attack the country they were meant to makes a game more historical. I mean it sortof does, but it's much better to have the ai look at the situation and go, well I attacking this would be the best idea because of these circumstances/game rules. People should quit complaining about certain factions overperforming in eu3... certain factions in history overperformed (like sweden) or underperformed (as ubik has pointed out on many occasions france was historically in a very powerful position).