screwtype said:
I really need autopause, because this one time, I was downstairs eating breakfast, and Castille DOWed me, and I didn't find out for five months, and I really couldn't raise many regiments.
EU III gets 5 out of 10 (funny review)
- Thread starter unmerged(19150)
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I really need autopause, because this one time, I was downstairs eating breakfast, and Castille DOWed me, and I didn't find out for five months, and I really couldn't raise many regiments.
screwtype said:
The game is not optimized to be non-stop action for playing nations like the Cherokee or Congo. I don't really see how it could be. Though I do think it should've kept the same rate of time as EUII.
Damocles said:
The rate he's talking about probably has more to do with the limitations of his hardware than the actual slowing down of the "extremely fast" setting by Paradox.
Feel free to correct me, of course.
AdmiralNelson said:The rate he's talking about probably has more to do with the limitations of his hardware than the actual slowing down of the "extremely fast" setting Paradox.
Yeah that's part of the problem, obviously, but my computer isn't that old. I bought the graphics card maybe 2 1/2 years ago for $350 and the system about 18 months ago, so it's not like this is an ancient machine. It's a real shock to find it can't run a strategy game at a reasonable pace.
All the same, I think the principle remains valid - there really is no need to simulate history on a daily basis when you are covering 350 years of history. I mean, if you take an old favourite of mine, Imperialism II, which is not as complex as EU but still pretty detailed, it covers about the same period in time but manages to do it very well with yearly turns. I just think the daily turn thing is overkill for a game of this scope.
screwtype said:
Ah, Imperialism II. I bought the strategy guide...but never got around to getting the game.
Played Imperialism for many years, but I managed to beat it just once. I came close a second time but ended up with a corrupt save in about 1907. I gave up after that.The original Imperialism used three month turns, rather than days.
Reviewer is a dumb ass, he almost developed a point but he ruined it by betraying his ignorance of the genre.
To hell with him, I'm off to conquer some more.
To hell with him, I'm off to conquer some more.
screwtype said:
It took me to about the third paragraph to realize you were not being sarcastic.
The reason I say that is to illustrate a point. I think you make a fair complaint. I disagree with you totally, but you point is still quite valid. Personally I love the day to day scale of the game and I am not the least bit bothered by the downtimes. In fact I would hate for the game to change it's time scale. Of course I have been playing since EU1 so I might also be more accustomed to the slower pace ( I am also old so I don't like change
). So I guess my point was that I have to sometimes remind myself that not everyone is accustomed to the slower pace of the EU series. 
On the Extremly fast setting it takes only about 5 min, maybe less, each year.
This means say an average of 300 year games with 5 min per you is 1,500 min. Take this by 60 min is 25 hours. I really don't see how they can make it go any faster. Sure it sucks as Native Americans ( I actually believe a slight reduction in tech development is needed) however play a European nation or another that actually does something and if it really flew by per week you would have to pause it very often.
This means say an average of 300 year games with 5 min per you is 1,500 min. Take this by 60 min is 25 hours. I really don't see how they can make it go any faster. Sure it sucks as Native Americans ( I actually believe a slight reduction in tech development is needed) however play a European nation or another that actually does something and if it really flew by per week you would have to pause it very often.
No, I never play any Paradox game without a book to read. Right now I'm on India: A History by John Keay.EUnderhill said:
EU2 went at least three times that fast. I liked it; I don't have a problem with constant pausing.VikingKing said:
Of course, I hear EU3 does 4 days/second on some computers.
AdmiralNelson said:Ah, Imperialism II. I bought the strategy guide...but never got around to getting the game.
You should pick it up, it's still a great little game, and runs almost bug free on XP. You can pick up a new copy of the game on EBay these days for $5.
I myself bought the game for $9.95, and that's probably the best value $9.95 I ever spent on a computer game. I must have played 200 campaigns!
I've never played Imp I, but Imp II is not that hard to beat. I routinely beat it at just short of the ultimate difficulty level now, and I always play the weakest faction and have a few other iron man rules. It still gets the better of me sometimes though. I had a bad run not long ago where I lost six campaigns in a row, so I still find it a challenge.
HoI has hourly turns and a timespan of 18 years in the most recent version. It therefore has 155520 turns compared to the 127750 of EU. This can be uneventful at times and so players often read books or do other things while ticking through the hours of peace.screwtype said:
Andrew
He reviewed it like he was reviewing Starcraft or similar RTS.
No wonder he didnt give it good score.
No wonder he didnt give it good score.
I bet that the reviewer complaint about the speed of the game because that fool kept the game speed running on the lowest setting.
He does have one point: The ability to queue units (or buildings!) would be really nice.
That said.... This isn't an atrocious review. Not really. It's just completely inapplicable.
That said.... This isn't an atrocious review. Not really. It's just completely inapplicable.
screwtype said:
The day-by-day continuous time is what gives paradox games their epic feeling, IMO. Not like Civ where before you know it it's 1500 AD already, even at the slowest speed.
1. Hate to break it to some of you guys, but not everyone likes the same games, and it's probably a good thing. The world would be pretty boring if we liked the same things. At any rate, you can't demand that everyone must love EU3 any more than you could demand that everyone must love tofu. Some do some don't.
In other words, feel free to cut it out with the "lmao, he never played anything more complex than Go Fish" wisecracks
2. I figure I have a pretty good computer, what with having an Athlon 64 4000+, Radeon X1900XT, 2 GB RAM, and WD Raptor hard drives. Guess what? I'm not entirely happy with the time settings either.
The maximum time acceleration is basically useless, as whole months zip by before you even notice anything is happening. I never actually needed to skip ahead that fast, and certainly not during the times of building the army or sending colonists or merchants. I want to skip maybe 50 days as I build infantry, but not 150 before I can click the "-" button. You can also pretty much kiss your chances to accept a treaty goodbye, as the icon will come and go within a couple of seconds on max speed. If you weren't actively looking at that part of the screen, you'll probably never even notice it.
The setting one step below is the only one that's actually any use, but it is often too slow. It's certainly slower than what I used in EU2 most of the time.
And it's that huge gap between the available options that's the problem. One is too slow, one is 10 times faster and pretty much unplayable. Whatever happened to the middle ground?
In EU2 and HOI2 I also used to set the messages to auto-pause, so I could just zip ahead until something happens. (Though even that isn't immediately obvious to a newbie.) In EU3, even that option became useless as a lot of dialogs occasionally don't show up. E.g., actually being notified of some COT change (e.g., I lost monopoly) is as good as Russian roulette for me. Sometimes I'm notified, sometimes the game obviously decides that I don't really need that info.
3. The new army building scheme is a valid complaint. I liked the old EU2 scheme a lot more. I don't want to repeat several clicks every 50 days just to build yet another batch of 1000 soldiers. If I have to build them one at a time, so be it, but at least let me batch them a la HOI2.
Upgrading the army when the tech level has changed enough is another pain. This time for large empires with big armies. Yay for clicking 50 times on some build button, manually moving them around to group them, and then transporting them piecemeal to my colonies. Again, how about at least batching the build orders?
4. That actually brings me to the larger point, someone at Paradox must really love micro-management. How about some automation options? E.g., whatever happened to the "auto-send merchants" option from EU2? Yes, it did dumb things, and yes, I'd much prefer to designate priorities for COTs or something. But even that was at times better than clicking manually for each one. Where did it go?
Etc.
Basically, no, I don't think it's horrible, but there _are_ valid complaints about it. I can see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.
In other words, feel free to cut it out with the "lmao, he never played anything more complex than Go Fish" wisecracks
2. I figure I have a pretty good computer, what with having an Athlon 64 4000+, Radeon X1900XT, 2 GB RAM, and WD Raptor hard drives. Guess what? I'm not entirely happy with the time settings either.
The maximum time acceleration is basically useless, as whole months zip by before you even notice anything is happening. I never actually needed to skip ahead that fast, and certainly not during the times of building the army or sending colonists or merchants. I want to skip maybe 50 days as I build infantry, but not 150 before I can click the "-" button. You can also pretty much kiss your chances to accept a treaty goodbye, as the icon will come and go within a couple of seconds on max speed. If you weren't actively looking at that part of the screen, you'll probably never even notice it.
The setting one step below is the only one that's actually any use, but it is often too slow. It's certainly slower than what I used in EU2 most of the time.
And it's that huge gap between the available options that's the problem. One is too slow, one is 10 times faster and pretty much unplayable. Whatever happened to the middle ground?
In EU2 and HOI2 I also used to set the messages to auto-pause, so I could just zip ahead until something happens. (Though even that isn't immediately obvious to a newbie.) In EU3, even that option became useless as a lot of dialogs occasionally don't show up. E.g., actually being notified of some COT change (e.g., I lost monopoly) is as good as Russian roulette for me. Sometimes I'm notified, sometimes the game obviously decides that I don't really need that info.
3. The new army building scheme is a valid complaint. I liked the old EU2 scheme a lot more. I don't want to repeat several clicks every 50 days just to build yet another batch of 1000 soldiers. If I have to build them one at a time, so be it, but at least let me batch them a la HOI2.
Upgrading the army when the tech level has changed enough is another pain. This time for large empires with big armies. Yay for clicking 50 times on some build button, manually moving them around to group them, and then transporting them piecemeal to my colonies. Again, how about at least batching the build orders?
4. That actually brings me to the larger point, someone at Paradox must really love micro-management. How about some automation options? E.g., whatever happened to the "auto-send merchants" option from EU2? Yes, it did dumb things, and yes, I'd much prefer to designate priorities for COTs or something. But even that was at times better than clicking manually for each one. Where did it go?
Etc.
Basically, no, I don't think it's horrible, but there _are_ valid complaints about it. I can see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.