My EU3 preview.

[unmerged(6105)]

I got the honour of writing up a little preview on Europa Universalis 3 for the strangly (aptly? ) named "Tacticular cancer" website. Here it is: http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=25


Now if anyone have any questions about the game I will answer them to the best of my knowledge. but I will be careful since several features was not implemented and a computer crash at home have me without both the preview copy and the little manual for it.

Unfortunately the crash also prevented me from giving some juicy screenshots, although "babyarm" presented some.

 

[Registered]

What are your system specs?

 

[unmerged(6105)]

What are your system specs?

Pentium4 3ghz. 1 gb RAM. 6800 graphics card. Not bad, but quite old and at this point as said crashed.

 

[Ulyanov]

This time around they made two big and quite controversial changes. First being the move over to a 3-D map. The other one is replacing their “historic events” with “situational events”.

Oh man, I wasn't aware of this...

It is quite clear in my mind, the ones who really want the game to closely follow history will be quite disappointed.

Yes... my enthusiasm for the game just dropped through a couple of floors now...

I should have payed more attention...

 

[Registered]

Pentium4 3ghz. 1 gb RAM. 6800 graphics card. Not bad, but quite old and at this point as said crashed.

heh, that easily tops my system. Might be a problem there
Nice review nonetheless

 

[unmerged(32886)]

For a player it is mostly a cosmetic change, but also a worry about how system demanding it will be. Not knowing how much more other processing there was, I can only say it did play slower than EU2. That comes as no surprise with a newer game, but that I had to pause when scrolling the map was a bit much. Optimization? We will see. I would like a option to turn off some of the animations. While moving water is nice, it has no extra value at all for me.

Interesting review. Mmmm, your system beats mine and still you had probs. I wonder what my pc will do .

The removing of the historical events is the real controversial one, though, for many of those were the more if not most important parts of the earlier games.

It was for me .

What I did notice is that additional “core” (natural part of your country) provinces were something I could get from events, instead of how some countries got that through historical events.

Very nice indeed and I was glad when I noticed they implemented this .

You recruit one regiment per province at a time. This limits army build-up in a good way, but can be a bit tedious.

Now this is new to me. Brings a twist to the game but I think I'll enjoy this more than building 50k armies each time. I pity those warmonger players .

While not fighting battles your regiments will replenish their strength by every month's end. Reinforcing is drawn from the manpower you accrue from your provinces.

I think it's good, but what if I don't want the regiment to be reinforced!? Oh well, what's one men more or less.

Another change is how the fortresses in your provinces after a siege/assault will have to replenish their numbers. Because of this, newly taken territory is easily lost if left unprotected since the garrison is threadbare.

Another new thing to me. Thumbs up for this new feature .

Since you only can build one ship per province with a port, the build up can be slow. The different types of ships give you good strategic choices, such as aiming for a fast or a strong fleet.

Dear God have mercy. One ship each time!? Mmmm, together with the slow army build up, people must start planning earlier. I like it as it forces ppl to plan things earlier, especially in MP. MP warfare will be much different due to this . Two thumbs up.

There are several other new features, the best as far as I saw being the “national ideas” one.

I liked what I saw . It pushes a nation towards one area which means sacrificing options in another area. I'll skip other quotes, but for me the review was interesting and increased my EU3 knowledge even though it may be old news to others.

... the ones who really want the game to closely follow history will be quite disappointed. While the flexible setup is something they will appreciate as much as anyone else, the game is bound to stray further from history. Inheritances and monarchs will be game functions, not things happening like it did in history. Everyone who just likes the series and wants to play around and change the destiny of their country will most likely be fully delighted. The new features are many and interesting, my favourite clearly being the “national ideas” one.

I'll really miss the change of course with regards to history, but as I always change the course of history myself in each game, don't think it'll be a big deal. All in all two thumbs up .

 

[Johan]

Interesting review. Mmmm, your system beats mine and still you had probs. I wonder what my pc will do :

Don't worry... he was sitting at a 2 month unoptimized alpha version

 

[Jolt]

Which National Ideas were there in the previwed game? (Assuming some/many more are being/will be added later.)

 

[Carewolf2]

CoT Stockholm?

I knew it!

The unrealistic and annoying concept of CoT have been preserved in EU3 to give Sweden an unrealistic advantage yet again.

 

[unmerged(42723)]

I got the honour of writing up a little preview on Europa Universalis 3 for the strangly (aptly? ) named "Tacticular cancer" website. Here it is: http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=25

Since you wrote in the preview that historic events are out, can you say if they are at least possible to mod?

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Which National Ideas were there in the previwed game? (Assuming some/many more are being/will be added later.)

IIRC they all (or almost all, anyway) were; although some have likely been tweaked a bit.

I'd like to make a few more comments in response to some of the review's comments:

• The version Jkris played was a relatively early one, with virtually no optimization and many features only partially implemented or tweaked. Many of his observations, while correct for the version he played, are as much the product of missing components and early build. The game plays much faster now than it did on his build.
  
  
• There had been little or no real "game balance" work done at the point that this build was created. Many events had generic triggers or guestimate mtths that would result in the "too many for big countries...too few for small" observation. In the past few months, these have undergone a drastic overhaul/improvement. Also, his build had only the very first series of events, the majority of which were more or less "random flavour" events rather than the more meaty historic ones. There have been lots more of the latter variety added since then. It is a bit misleading to say that "historic events are gone" but rather it would be more appropriate to say that "predeterministic historic events are gone and replaced by contextually-sensitive historic events instead."
  
  
• One thing about the regiments/shipbuilding...yes, it takes longer to assemble armies and fleets but once they're assembled you will probably use them for more or less the entire game. You will view the loss of a regiment or ship as a tradgedy, rather than EU2's "oh well...I'll just quickly whip up another 100k army in a couple months" approach to the military. You'll find that your strategy will be to gradually increase the size of your overall army as your economy is able to support it. Once in the field, the monthly reninforcement saves you from the hassle of continually building new regiments to replace your losses. In my testing, I find that I actually use far fewer "build" clicks during the course of the game than I would have to do in EU2.
  
  
• On a related note, ships repair damage when sitting in harbours, so you can avoid having to continually build new ships to replace your losses which -- if you were a large naval power in EU2 -- could be quite the click-fest.
  
  
• I think he may have slightly misunderstood the way that generals and admirals affect combat. Even if you have the crappiest leader in the world, your army/fleet will be considerably more likely to win a combat than if it's unled. (It's not entirely his fault that he didn't understand this as the interface in that build didn't go out of its way to clarrify the way it works...and of course that's changed now).
  
  
• I can't disagree with his statement that some people will be disappointed with the direction that game is taking. If you're looking for a rigid historical game where all of the ruler and leader names are "right", and where events will fire regardless of what's really happening in the game, then yes, you'll probably find it a bit of an adjustment or possibly even a turn off. It is hoped that those players will give it a chance and will find that while playing EU3 is a somewhat different experience, it is equally enjoyable for other reasons. For those who were looking for more "realism", I think they've gone a long way to providing that.

Just my 2 cents.


EDIT: This is in no way intended to be a criticism of his preview. His observations are entirely reasonable based on the build that he had available to him when he wrote it.

 

[unmerged(6105)]

Which National Ideas were there in the previwed game? (Assuming some/many more are being/will be added later.)

I believe I had all the possible ones and all was possible to chose from the onstart. since I only have from memory due to the crahsed computer I can only give a small preview of what there is, also I believe many may be due to playbalancing changes... There where five different branches, Army, naval, cultural and two I more I don't remember the name of. I believe there was five different choices per branch which would then mean 25 different choices. Some special ones like "quest for the new world" and many that gives different bonuses to your nation, army or naval force. I am sure these choices can really personalise your nation and give you the edge on some area.

CoT Stockholm?

I knew it!

The unrealistic and annoying concept of CoT have been preserved in EU3 to give Sweden an unrealistic advantage yet again.

CoT allocations is about the same as in EU2. If you start later Stockholm will have one, if you start early it won't.

Since you wrote in the preview that historic events are out, can you say if they are at least possible to mod?

I have not modded a preview version But yes I am certain it is possible to mod in, as can be seen in the develper diaries it is supposed to be even more easy to mod than EU2.

 

[unmerged(6105)]

Many events had generic triggers or guestimate mtths that would result in the "too many for big countries...too few for small" observation. In the past few months, these have undergone a drastic overhaul/improvement. Also, his build had only the very first series of events, the majority of which were more or less "random flavour" events rather than the more meaty historic ones. There have been lots more of the latter variety added since then. It is a bit misleading to say that "historic events are gone" but rather it would be more appropriate to say that "predeterministic historic events are gone and replaced by contextually-sensitive historic events instead."

That sounds great. Personally I like many events. As for events missing I understood that which was why I didn't go deeper into discussing it than mentioning there where contextual instead of historic. It is true that I could have specified about "historic contextual", but I didn't see much of that except some provinces turning protestant. Yes for the ones interested, provinces turning protestant is no longer a hardcoded event where all the same pronvinces convert on the same day.

[*]One thing about the regiments/shipbuilding...yes, it takes longer to assemble armies and fleets but once they're assembled you will probably use them for more or less the entire game. You will view the loss of a regiment or ship as a tradgedy, rather than EU2's "oh well...I'll just quickly whip up another 100k army in a couple months" approach to the military. You'll find that your strategy will be to gradually increase the size of your overall army as your economy is able to support it. Once in the field, the monthly reninforcement saves you from the hassle of continually building new regiments to replace your losses. In my testing, I find that I actually use far fewer "build" clicks during the course of the game than I would have to do in EU2.

A bit of the problem of the build and the short playing periods, I had to build up a army for every new start. Anyway, I made a good clarification here.

[*]I think he may have slightly misunderstood the way that generals and admirals affect combat. Even if you have the crappiest leader in the world, your army/fleet will be considerably more likely to win a combat than if it's unled. (It's not entirely his fault that he didn't understand this as the interface in that build didn't go out of its way to clarrify the way it works...and of course that's changed now).

the only thing I saw in the battle display was the leader bonus in fire and shock and I had one leader that showed no bonus at all. I will take your word for that not being true though, I am sure you are not lying about it

 

[unmerged(6777)]

That sounds great. Personally I like many events. As for events missing I understood that which was why I didn't go deeper into discussing it than mentioning there where contextual instead of historic. It is true that I could have specified about "historic contextual", but I didn't see much of that except some provinces turning protestant. Yes for the ones interested, provinces turning protestant is no longer a hardcoded event where all the same pronvinces convert on the same day.

No worries. As I said, the build you had is quite early and lacks a lot of the fun stuff (and accomanying text) that is in the current beta build.

A bit of the problem of the build and the short playing periods, I had to build up a army for every new start. Anyway, I made a good clarification here.

Totally understandable. IIRC, your build also had much smaller starting armies and either no shipts or maybe only 1 or 2. I can see how having to continually build everything before being able to act would be a bit of a hassel. In practice, I now find that my nation ambles along very smoothly without the massive click-fest that accompanied the start of wars in EU2. I find that it also changes the strategic complexion of maintaining and positioning standing armies in a very interesting way.

the only thing I saw in the battle display was the leader bonus in fire and shock and I had one leader that showed no bonus at all. I will take your word for that not being true though, I am sure you are not lying about it

Yeah. Those are bonuses over and above the regiment capabilities. The leader doesn't replace these, he enhances them. A leader with 0 ratings across the board should be either impossible (or so wildly improbable that it would make for a funny story when you got one); and in combat, every little bit helps.

 

[Tem_Probe]

CoT Stockholm?

I knew it!

The unrealistic and annoying concept of CoT have been preserved in EU3 to give Sweden an unrealistic advantage yet again.

Yes, of course, keeping the concept of CoT was surely done to give Sweden an advantage :rofl:

 

[Registered]

Yes, of course, keeping the concept of CoT was surely done to give Sweden an advantage :rofl:

It's a grand anti-Danish conspiracy *nods*

 

[vertinox]

[*]One thing about the regiments/shipbuilding...yes, it takes longer to assemble armies and fleets but once they're assembled you will probably use them for more or less the entire game.

Who in their right mind would go sailing on a 300 year old ship? :rofl:

I suppose if they replaced it peice by peice on the centuries, but then would it really be the same ship?

 

[unmerged(8915)]

wow! excellent preview and the update from MrT is just a treasure trove of information! i cant wait to get my hands on EU3. it will be THE game keep up the great work guys, you are doing a marvelous job

 

[unmerged(59737)]

Any information is good information.

 

[Dakk]

Nice preview Jkris, and MrT's clarifications, as it were, are real tidbits of goodieness. I hope you'll get the opportunity to write or (p)review more!

Any information is good information.

Last time you said that, the thread got locked...