What games to buy? Europa universalis 2?

tishco · April 5, 2002, 14:41

i am looking forward to master of orion 3 and medieval total war, but they come out in summer onwards (august plus for medieval, oct/nov for moo3)
i have bought medal of honour, and was quite disapointed at the later levels
i am looking for sugestions for a game to fill the gap, i was thinking europa universalis 2, i have not played the first one, is its sequal any good?
any other sugestions?

tishco

Eli · April 5, 2002, 14:47

I'm playing it now and it's a great game IMO.

tishco · April 5, 2002, 14:48

oh yes, my pc specs are:

1ghz athlon

geforce mx 32mb

512 ram

win me

ixnay · April 5, 2002, 16:01

EU2 is an excellent game. Paradox Plaza (who did EU & EU2) announced today that they're doing an EU-style game during WW2, so you might want to keep an eye on that.

Zopperoni · April 5, 2002, 16:19

I'm trying to get my WarCraft 3 Beta-version to work properly, but haven't really put in the necessary effort...for the rest I don't see many interesting games lying around.

Mark_Everson · April 5, 2002, 21:15

Hi Tishco:

I have only about 5 hrs past the tutorials with EU2, but have so far found it disappointing. A lot of senseless micromanagement is required to build troops and navies. But the learning curve is steep, and I am just in the foothills...

tishco · April 6, 2002, 06:41

i might wait till the price drops a bit before i buy it then

Eli · April 6, 2002, 07:00

Mark_Everson, I dont reccomend the tutorials at all. Maybe except the two first ones to understand the basics. The tutorials are long and boring, it's better to learn from mistakes.
I started at least 10 games before my current ones, and in all of them I either failed in the very beginning or found myself in a very inferior position after a few decades. In my current game playing a Great Campaign I control eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Balkans and the ME with the Ottoman Empire and it's only 1500.

The best way to understand exploration and colony building is playing for an hour or two the Fantasia scenario. It's pretty boring, there are only 7(IIRC) nations on the planet and each one starts with 3 or 5 cities. So there is no early diplomacy, no early wars etc. But it really helps you to understand the game basics.

tishco · April 6, 2002, 09:44

is the grand campaign like shogun or civ

Eli · April 6, 2002, 12:47

Quote:

Originally posted by tishco
is the grand campaign like shogun or civ

If you mean starting with a small number of cities, developing and expanding them to change the course of history, then no. This is Fantasia and it's extremely boring because the game is not built for this kind of play style.

The Grand Campaign is a game starting in 1419 and ending in 1819 with every coutnry starting with what it historically had in 1419. So that you still have Byzantium, plenty of small German states, English provinces in France, Spain is not united, the Golden Horde still exists etc. And you can choose to play with any country you want. Major nations like England, France, Castille, Austria(and more) and small ones like Denmark, the Teutonic Order, the Duchy of Athens etc.

Mark_Everson · April 6, 2002, 13:32

Thanks Eli, I'll try your approach next time I get back to EU2.

Ecthy · April 6, 2002, 13:36

It was actually me who recommended it to him and it seems he has already overtaken me in gameplay etc

Well I still have a real life after all

tishco · April 6, 2002, 15:19

with the grand campaign:
it sounds like wot i meant, like shogun quite a lot, all the nations in the place they started.

the grand campaign is the 1 i'll like, that is the kind of game i like.

i might still wait till its £20, i could get eu1, but its not worth it , better waiting to buy the better game

Grumbold · April 6, 2002, 22:23

EU2 is the superior buy, no doubt about it. I will warn you that the game is not 100% stable unless you are very lucky, but despite occasional crashes it is still the best game on my hard drive IMO, and I buy 1-2 games each month as a rule.

The key to EU2 is historicity. It works best if you try to play similarly to the course of historical fact. If you expand too fast or too aggressively then (at least on harder difficulty levels) you will find yourself running into problems as the world will universely hate you with a passion and typically your research will be down the toilet because you are trying to hold together a very disparate nation. Indeed they're still tweaking the game mechanics to allow nations who historically should expand fast at certain times to do so without too harsh a backlash.

Thats not to say you can't be a bloody conqueror at times - in my most recent game as England I crushed proto-France before it really had a chance to blossom. This meant I had to be a good boy for almost a century afterward to regain the good opinion of many other continental nations (and King Henry VIII never turned Protestant as a result) but it allowed me unopposed colonisation of North America.

Ecthy · April 7, 2002, 07:25

other example - both Eli and me played the grand campaign as Turkey and expanded rapidly. Playing on the easiest possible settings that was rather simple, BUT.... due to strange random events, my stability is regularly decreased and the revolt risk in provinces increased as much. therefore, my balkan armies are constantly marching from one province to another in order to crush revolts. I should have gone for narrow-minded settings earlier in that game. and my research is completely down anyway... so I was too fast

Eli was even faster but doesn't get any revolt events, talk about Jewish priviledges

tishco · April 7, 2002, 08:33

Sounds good, i will buy it when eu2 get the money.

I like the sound of the various aspects, like religion and revolt, like shogun only much more expanded.

What is the difficulty settings like, eg. for a first time player is easy easy enough to play without going downhill straight away?

Tishco

Eli · April 7, 2002, 08:58

Quote:

Originally posted by tishco
What is the difficulty settings like, eg. for a first time player is easy easy enough to play without going downhill straight away?

Ja.

Shadowstrike · April 7, 2002, 14:28

The difficulty settings only affect the costs of building and BB wars IIRC. Aggression settings are supposedly better when lower (so that enemies are readier for battle instead of being constantly worn out).

tishco · April 8, 2002, 12:05

bit like civ 3

are the ai agressive, i mean the most annoying thing on civ3 is when the ais are all at peace but pick on you! which relates to cheating, is there any?
thx for the opinions

Tishco

Grumbold · April 8, 2002, 12:25

Have no fear, the AI happily war with each other a lot. This is because many nations are given "Casus Belli" (CB) tags on lots of provinces they historically saw as theirs or wanted to be theirs. It motivates them to declare war to obtain or reclaim them. On higher difficulty settings the AI also regularly attack the nations they see as being "bad boys". Understanding badboy is an art, but the diplomatic screen gives you clues (you are honourable ... slightly tarnished ... worse than dishonourable scum) and the EU2 website will spell it all out in deep detail if you want it.

Typically, taking provinces you have a legitimate claim on from an enemy who started the war is not too bad, but declaring an unjustified war on a neighbour of the same religion and annexing them completely is appalling. Your reputation will slowly recover but at 1 point every 4 years (8 on hardest setting) it can take half a century to recover from annexing a single small nation if it was unjustified and they share your faith. To become an expert in the game you have to learn when to annex an enemy and when to force them to become a vassal and make them into your friends so you can absorb them peacefully thirty years later.