Originally posted by ThePatriot
Hi everybody. I've been thinking about buying either EU2 or CIV3 and was just wanting to know everybody's opinions on these 2 games. I've never played EU before, but I have played Civ2 and I was wanting to know what the fundamental gameplay differences are. I'll probably end up buying EU2 (doesn't look as buggy, and it looks to be a complete upon delivery game, unlike CIV3 apparently is), but I wanted opinions on these games from the people here who have played both.
I'm also wanting to know what the System Reqs. are for EU2. I've found the Reqs for Civ3, but not EU2. Well, that's all I have for now guys.
Thanks for your help, Chris
First, the system reqs: PII 266 MHz 64 MB RAM. Although definitely of those three the more RAM the better.
As for comparing the games - well, you can probably guess that this board will be slightly biased towards EUII
But honestly, the CIV series and the EU series are quite different games. They both model history, but do it in vastly different ways. Civ3 is very abstracted, while EU2 is very much based in reality. Thus, in EU2, you are playing on Earth during a specific time period, from 1419 to 1820, and will interact with the nations which existed at that time (well over 100 at any given time, although you may not have discovered where many are as the game begins). Unlike Civ3, you don't start out as a single city and expand until you meet the other nations; you start out as large as the country you select actually was at the time, and you most likely already are bordering your neighbors. This doesn't mean there isn't any colonization - there are plenty of open provinces ready to be colonized, so it is an important facet of the game, just not as vital as in Civ. However, exploration and trading mps is much like it is in Civ, although coming by explorers is a bit rarer in EU2...
Diplomacy is the heart of EU2; you have a whole bunch of options when interacting with other nations (Military alliances, trade agreements, royal marriages, sending letters and gifts both friendly and insulting). The continually changing diplomacy matrix and the different diplomatic combinations that occur in every new game is something that really sets EU2 apart from other games. Of course, if things go bad, you can always attempt to solve things by war...
Scientific advance is about the only thing really abstracted in EU2; there are five lines of research, and you choose how much you are going to spend on each line and as time goes by you gain new knowledge. City improvements are also less common than in CIV, there are only a few new buildings to put in place. It is in these two areas that EU2 is less detailed than the CIV series ...
The short of it:
EU2's map is fixed - the countries and provinces don't change each time you start a new game. CIV3s map is random. It depends on whether you like random maps or not.
EU2 has well over a hundred (nearer 200) other playable nations that cover the globe - 100+ nations all of which become your opponents after you choose one. Bored of playing England and France? Play Oman, the Shawnee, Baden, Mali, or Korea! Civ3, on the other hand, has only 16 nations to play or choose from.
EU2 is solidly based in history, although once things start, things can deviate quite markedly from what historically happened. Civ3 is less grounded in historocity and is more of an abstraction.
EU2 has a large variety of diplomatic options, Civ3 has much fewer.
EU2 has fewer city improvements, Civ3 has many more.
EU2 has a great event system that throws both historical and random events at you, making you choose which course you take and having game effects for each choice; Civ3 has nothing like it.
EU2 has a lineal scientific research tree; Civ3 has more of a branching tree, althoug you can only research one at a time (whereas you can reserch in one, some, or all lines in EU2)
EU2 has an exhaustive list of historical rulers for each nation, some good at some things, some good at all things, and some you'd rather forget about. Civ3 has a single monarch for each nation the entire game...
EU2 has historical military leaders who can enhance and army's or navy's performance; Civ3 has a few fairly generic leaders who appear much less frequently.
One final remark about EU2 since you haven't played the original. You may think that since it is so grounded in history that it will play the same over and over again adn will rapidly become boring. As a long-time EU player, I can tell you that every game is uniquely different, and that after 100 games you will still be surprised by unexpected developments. And the game is so deep and complex (but complex in a good way) that there is seemingly always some nuance to be learned long after you think you've mastered it...
