I've heard about Europa Universalis III a long time ago and I'd seen some pictures but it seemed so... unpolished. I frankly had never heard about Paradox and its games.
Boy - was I missing a lot. As a history/war/general knowledge buff/freak - this game is AWESOME.
Back in high school and during college, rarely after I left college, I'd have rounds of playing non-stop for 4-6-8-10 hours, late into the night and maybe in the morning too. RTS games, strategy games, simulators, anything and everything that looked like it had real depth: Championship Manager, Panzer General, Age of Empires, World of Warcraft, Dota, Warhammer 40k: Rites of War, Close Combat, Starcraft, Warcraft, Transport Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Simcity, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, etc.
I don't know how I could've missed such an awesome game concept. Strategy, military tactics, economy, diplomacy, reliving historic decisions and making countless "what if" choices... just incredible.
So I dove in EU IV knowing that I'd love the game and that I'll be barely able to really understand it the first few weeks. And as any real nut job would do, I chose Byzantium as my first game. Not Iron man, cause I wanted to experiment, but normal difficulty and not a lot of save scumming - about 6-7 restarts and maybe 6-7 reloads later on.
I barely finished a tech tree and picked completely useless technologies. I had something like 20 ideas at the end of the game. A military with hundreds of thousands of soldier that could not beat a Russian 30k stack.
I tried to stay within the historical Roman boundaries - territory + vassals. I initially had planned to do a full reconquest - including England and France, but boy, was I naive. I think I played for about 200 years without figuring out basic concepts like diplomatic relations eat up diplomatic points. I also threw around royal marriages like candy.
To top things off for the newbie, I think I had rulers with 1/0/1 stats for 100+ years.
I read a lot on these forums and on Reddit + the wiki. I think I still have at least 30-40 hours of reading and many hundreds of hours of playing until I can actually make optimized decision.
Still, a great ride!
In the end I think only my allies kept me alive in front of the imba Russia PUd with Great Britain and Portal and allied with Austria - covering half the world.
My next goal seems insane now, maybe a veteran can confirm it:
Thanks Paradox for a great game and thanks folks for your attention
Boy - was I missing a lot. As a history/war/general knowledge buff/freak - this game is AWESOME.
Back in high school and during college, rarely after I left college, I'd have rounds of playing non-stop for 4-6-8-10 hours, late into the night and maybe in the morning too. RTS games, strategy games, simulators, anything and everything that looked like it had real depth: Championship Manager, Panzer General, Age of Empires, World of Warcraft, Dota, Warhammer 40k: Rites of War, Close Combat, Starcraft, Warcraft, Transport Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Simcity, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, etc.
I don't know how I could've missed such an awesome game concept. Strategy, military tactics, economy, diplomacy, reliving historic decisions and making countless "what if" choices... just incredible.
So I dove in EU IV knowing that I'd love the game and that I'll be barely able to really understand it the first few weeks. And as any real nut job would do, I chose Byzantium as my first game. Not Iron man, cause I wanted to experiment, but normal difficulty and not a lot of save scumming - about 6-7 restarts and maybe 6-7 reloads later on.
I barely finished a tech tree and picked completely useless technologies. I had something like 20 ideas at the end of the game. A military with hundreds of thousands of soldier that could not beat a Russian 30k stack.
I tried to stay within the historical Roman boundaries - territory + vassals. I initially had planned to do a full reconquest - including England and France, but boy, was I naive. I think I played for about 200 years without figuring out basic concepts like diplomatic relations eat up diplomatic points. I also threw around royal marriages like candy.
To top things off for the newbie, I think I had rulers with 1/0/1 stats for 100+ years.
I read a lot on these forums and on Reddit + the wiki. I think I still have at least 30-40 hours of reading and many hundreds of hours of playing until I can actually make optimized decision.
Still, a great ride!
In the end I think only my allies kept me alive in front of the imba Russia PUd with Great Britain and Portal and allied with Austria - covering half the world.
My next goal seems insane now, maybe a veteran can confirm it:
- Iron man 1444
- Wallachia
- Form Romania
- Only provinces of the same nationality and religion (each conquest = province completely converted before next conquest)
- Within bounds of Dacia
(vassals can be outside of them; BTW, does anyone know why Hungary has only Hungarian + Catholic provinces within it - historically it definitely wasn't so) - Survive until 1821
Thanks Paradox for a great game and thanks folks for your attention