Europa Multiversalis
So Europa Universalis III is out. And everyone knows what a Paradox fanboi I am, so clearly I should be raving about this!
My initial impressions aren’t that good.
It’s UGLY. This is using a new 3D engine for Paradox and… it’s just bad. Sure, the screenshots on the website look fine, but most of the time? This is what you’ll be looking at.
Let’s play GUESS THE UPGRADE
On the left, EU3. On the right, EU2. Considering that EU2’s core engine is seven years old (and can run quite well on old laptops), this isn’t much of an improvement. Sure, this series isn’t about eye candy, but the entire enterprise’s user interface just feels slapdash. And this doesn’t just extend to the look and feel. Many automation features seem to have gotten lost in translation, such as the ability to autosend merchants to centers of trade when they come available. Sure, it’s *better* to micromanage that, but just removing the option to have the AI do it… this is an upgrade?
More seriously, the underlying event model, which is really kind of the point with this series, was completely redone. No longer are you competing against the march of history as represented in deterministic events, the primary attraction for history boffins who enjoyed this series and didn’t play it merely to try to see if they could conquer the world with the Duchy of Modena. Instead, the game tries to model cause and effect. Instead of having a hardcoded Hussite Revolt in Bohemia in 1589, you might, if you have a peasant revolt in Bulgaria, and you don’t send troops in time, then you’ll maybe get an event that says “The Bulgarian minority is revolting!” In case you, you know, missed it. And it’s not just minor things that are left to this model. Say, the Protestant Reformation. Better hope somebody in Germany eventually gets a good religious advisor or Europe may be stuck paying indulgences to Friar Tetzel for a while.
This is obviously based on the Crusader Kings model, which worked to a degree for that game. But for modeling 400 years of European History? Not gonna happen. History is just simply too complex to be effectively modeled by an AI script without the human intervention of deterministic events. The fact that EU3 stops at 1792, whereas EU2 goes on to 1820, is illustrative. Because in EU3, how would you ever model a Napoleon Bonaparte? Either you try, and every so often the player is given a free gift of SUPER RULER, OWNER OF THE WORLD — or you don’t. Napoleon was one of those historic leaders that simply can’t be created by a random dice roll.
So instead of a game which could go a long way towards teaching you why history happened (which EU2, and the Hearts of Iron series both do very well), you get – a sandbox. With a multiverse – an infinite variety of Europes, all of which sort of vaguely resemble the one in books. Which tells you maybe that England was a bunch of right badasses, and the Ottomans were hard to throw out of Europe. But it doesn’t tell you squat about, say, the War of the Roses. Because it’ll never happen. If it does, it’s “Oh, Random Leader Zed decided he’d take half your empire.” Not really the same echoes of history there, really. It’s more of a sandbox, and thus becomes less interesting.
There are some improvements, to be sure. Military tradition is modeled, so England is a mother of a powerhouse starting out. I messed around with an Irish fiefdom, took out some loans and recruited about 10,000 mercenaries (in EU3 a monster army) and threw them at the 2000-strong English garrison in Meath. Which promptly laughed and picked its teeth with the pikes of the few survivors. OK, so conquering the world as Ireland may pose a few issues. Diplomacy is richer. The Victoria system of modeling government types makes an appearance. Stuff like that.
Again, this is just a first glance, the result of a few hours of gameplay. But dear god, the gameplay better get better soon, because this game sure got ugly. And I don’t just mean the map colors.
Personally I LIKE the sandbox effect since sooooooooooo many of the hardcoded EU II events often made no sense when they triggered (for example Spanish bankruptcy events when my treasury is full). I’d like to have all of the historical events in as long as the conditions are right, not just when I hit a certain date.
And you’re right, the map is hideously ugly. The only bright side of that is that the map is also completely customizable so there’ll hopefully be fun things like A Song of Ice and Fire mods written eventually.
I could have sworn the screenshots were photographs of a board game. “Oh how cute, Scott’s gone back to his roots and has been painting miniatures like an OCD fiend.”
I’m not sure what the hell Paradox was thinking with it’s art direction. Forutnately, it seems to be moddable, and one of my firends got a the colors to be a lot better.
I’m gutted. After Doomsday, which I found kinda meh to be honest (in order to avoid the added micromanagement I have returned to playing vanilla HOI2 now) I was rather hoping (and expecting) that EU3 would be a return to form.
As it is, it seems from your description rather like a cross between Civ and Medieval:TW 2. Which is another game I’ve been disappointed by (so it’s pretty M:TW1 battles with the turn-based bits of R:TW, anything actually new?).
All that and my mighty World Empire of Scotland will be faced with unbeatable Sassenachs? Bah… I hope that if you fight them in 1314 as Scots you at least get a free, crushing victory…
Wow, never thought I’d read a Lum review like that regarding Paradox.
So do the system req’s exclude older systems then? I can’t imagine they have much need for insane graphics power or anything.
Yeah, they do. 1GB ram, 128MB video card with Shader 2 support. Which is… um… insane given the lack of shiny.
The map is really ugly. It’s a disaster. Why are the borders so damn blocky? A game like this does not need 3D. Big mistake.
GalCiv 2 is a good example of moving a strategy game to 3D successfully.
EU3 is… not a good example.
I think it’s mainly just really poor art direction. The engine isn’t *bad* inherently. Just has really, really ugly assets.
My mod making skills reached their heights when I was useing Logo on my Apple IIe, so I have no clue here, but is it within mod makers powers to redo the graphics scheme for the whole game? Just curious.
I kinda liked the map…
I guess thats why I’m a coder.
Panzer General 3D was another example of a couple of 2d classic versions that suddenly tried to go 3D for no apparent reason beyondd a tick in a feature list.
Yeah, but something like GalCiv2 where you have starship design, planets, etc. lends itself to 3D a lot better.
A game that’s essentially a board wargame though..I just don’t see the need for it here..or maybe I would, if it wasn’t so ugly.
Maybe ugly isn’t the right word…”clunky” is better. The whole game is clunky.
Bah! I was very much looking forward to this game, since I loved the first two.
Thanks for nothing, Scott! It’s all YOUR fault!
It sounds like for events they should mix the two. Like, say, give each event a window of time (each would be different depending on the nature of the event) roughly surrounding the historical event and have the AI watch game conditions to see if there is enough similarity to history during that timeframe to trigger the event. So that if your internal politics is strong in England for most of a particular hundred years then the War of the Roses never happens, but if things slip too far in that window you get hit with it. That would be a cool middle ground. Plus an understanding of what you can do as a player to trigger or avoid a particular event gives you that much more understanding of the history behind it to begin with.
So you’re saying I should keep EU2 and my hard drive then?
Duly noted.
Er, ON my hard drive, I meant to say.
I like the new dynamism of EU3 – and it’s not that ugly if you stay off the terrain map. I only play in political and diplomatic modes to keep my eyes clean.
“So that if your internal politics is strong in England for most of a particular hundred years then the War of the Roses never happens, but if things slip too far in that window you get hit with it.”
This was what a lot of players thought would be happening, based on early Paradox statements. And, with the mod community hard at work already, I think that this sort of thing could be over the horizon.
I am the sad.
I was a Paradox fan.
That was before Diplomacy, Doomsday and EU3.
Diplomacy was a disaster. They should have changed the graphical team after Diplo. Doomsday was an add-on adding… bugs. EU3 is also ridden with bugs (read the official forums about them), is ugly and definitely ahistorical.
Now I play Forge of Freedom, an excellent strategic game about the American Civil War. And I forgot the mere existence of Paradox.