This Friday marks the 17th birthday of the Europa Universalis franchise. On October 20th, 2000, the German version of the game shipped. Localizations for Scandinavia, the US and the UK followed, months later. As a side-effect of this, I first heard of the game from an American friend that had bought the German version, just in time for me to buy the Scandinavian version.
With that in mind, I reinstalled the game for a quick play - and to view the short introduction sequence once more, to reminisce on where it all started. Granted, I only had my Scandinavian copy (which didn't have English as a language option), but I've added some optional close-caption subtitles. Oh, and I went with Norwegian rather than Swedish, for no other reason than that Europa Universalis is one of very few games ever fully localized to my language, and I'm greatly amused by that. The lines are really awkwardly spoken, though, and some don't quite make sense. Lost in translation, perhaps.
For those of you who still have your EU1 box copies - the game will run out of the box on Windows 10, though I couldn't get the music to play properly. It also still features all the crash bugs it shipped with, so you might have to look around for a patch.
Playing around with the game for a while certainly lets you appreciate how far the franchise has come, and how much better the game has become over the years. It's been a fun journey to have played through.
Thank you, Paradox, for the countless hours of laughs and rage tantrums, careful plotting and grueling coalition wars, megalomaniac map painting and lessons in both geography and history. May it continue for decades to come still.
P.S. - will there ever be a Platypus plushie akin to the Chirpy and Blorg ones?
With that in mind, I reinstalled the game for a quick play - and to view the short introduction sequence once more, to reminisce on where it all started. Granted, I only had my Scandinavian copy (which didn't have English as a language option), but I've added some optional close-caption subtitles. Oh, and I went with Norwegian rather than Swedish, for no other reason than that Europa Universalis is one of very few games ever fully localized to my language, and I'm greatly amused by that. The lines are really awkwardly spoken, though, and some don't quite make sense. Lost in translation, perhaps.
For those of you who still have your EU1 box copies - the game will run out of the box on Windows 10, though I couldn't get the music to play properly. It also still features all the crash bugs it shipped with, so you might have to look around for a patch.
Playing around with the game for a while certainly lets you appreciate how far the franchise has come, and how much better the game has become over the years. It's been a fun journey to have played through.
Thank you, Paradox, for the countless hours of laughs and rage tantrums, careful plotting and grueling coalition wars, megalomaniac map painting and lessons in both geography and history. May it continue for decades to come still.
P.S. - will there ever be a Platypus plushie akin to the Chirpy and Blorg ones?
