[typing]
Well, this is new.
I actually hurt my back
playing the game for today's review.
I was so engrossed in it that I was hunched over
in my computer chair, leaning into the screen,
just getting sucked into this game world
for hours and hours and hours.
That– that was not a good idea, but I did it anyway.
What kind of game can make me do this? Well...
Yeah...
Europa Universalis,
developed by Paradox Entertainment AB
and published by Vision Park AB in Europe in 2000,
and in 2001 by Strategy First in the USA.
Faith. Power. Wealth.
1492 to 1792.
Yes, this is a game with a major hard-on for historical accuracy,
as you might have guessed from the very specific years on the cover.
Mmm, look at all that text.
Appropriate that the box is like 70% text and 30% graphics
because that's pretty close to the ratio you get in the game, too.
And in case you're wondering,
Paradox Entertainment is indeed the same as Paradox Interactive nowadays,
the company currently most known for games like Crusader Kings II
and the upcoming Cities: Skylines.
But their own history goes back much further,
with their roots in Target Games AB,
founded in 1980,
but declared bankruptcy in 1999.
Having nothing to do with the American anti-Walmart retailer,
the Sweden-based Target Games developed and published all sorts of games and products,
from fantasy role-playing tabletop stuff
to miniatures and figurines
to computer games.
One of these games was the odd-to-pronounce Svea Rike–
it's as close as I'm gonna get–
released in 1997 for Windows PCs,
a strategy game where the goal is to end up as the King of Sweden,
by way of resource management, trade and politics.
By the time Paradox Entertainment rose over the ashes of Target Games,
Svea Rike had hit its third iteration
and a new game using similar ideas was on the horizon.
This was Europa Universalis,
which was not only based on the aesthetic and mechanics of Svea Rike,
but the name and rules of a board game from 1993,
also called Europa Universalis,
by Azure Wish Enterprise.
Inside the American release of the computer game here,
you get the game on a single CD-ROM,
the all-important foldout hotkey reference sheet,
a Strategy First catalog that makes me want to spend far too much money,
and one heck of a manual.
At times, this reads more like a school textbook
than documentation for a computer game,
and is overwhelming if you're one of those
that likes to read manuals entirely before playing.
But for a daunting game such as this,
you have to be dauntLESS,
so let the manual be the first clue to brace yourself.
Europa Universalis launches with a paradoxical logo or two,
followed by a grandiose introductory cinematic,
originally narrated in lovely Swedish.
[Swedish narrator]
You then get a menu that just screams STRATEGY GAME,
which lets you play in either single-player or multiplayer mode.
Multiplayer is where a game like this can really shine,
but that's only if you can find enough people
as willing to lose weeks of their life as you are,
so we'll just be looking at single-player.
Here, you've got ten scenarios,
one tutorial, and any save games you've made.
The tutorial is an absolute must,
and even that can take upwards of four hours to complete.
But if you're familiar with other Paradox grand strategy games,
or are just INSANE,
you can sink your teeth into the meat from the get-go.
Nine of these ten scenarios
are based on specific moments and wars in colonial European history,
but there's one called Fantasia that's a real treat.
It allows you to just go crazy and mess with civilizations
from around the world in a historical context,
but without following history to the letter like the rest of them.
So if you wanna go all Sid Meier
and try to wipe out China as the Iroquois,
this is your scenario.
Once you've decided on what to manipulate,
you can then choose from a variety of victory conditions and gameplay options.
There are four main ways to win each scenario,
from gaining the most points by a certain year
to taking over the known world.
So combine this with the various empires you can play as
and randomized and historical events,
and the number of scenarios effectively balloons to a much higher number than ten.
So, this is Europa Universalis.
[gunfire and swords clanging]
Oh my god.
Okay, let me just make something clear:
this is a game that can easily take upwards of 20 hours to complete a smaller scenario,
and that will balloon to 40, 60, 80 hours and beyond
for a full 300-year reign.
If you're not the type that loves sinking days of your life
into a skirmish over a few territories
along the outskirts of Catalonia,
you can move RIGHT along.
However, if you're like me
and that just appeals to you on a deep, carnal level,
and you can't possibly rest until every last one of those bastards
either bleeds out or bows before you,
then, my friend, you are in the right place.
So pull up a chair and bring some trail mix.
Europa Universalis is a real-time strategy game,
but it's not what you think of when you think of RTS typically,
ala Age of Empires and Command & Conquer.
No, this is a grand strategy game,
and game built on the very foundations
of what personal computer gaming used to mean.
Alongside things like military flight sims
and computer role-playing games,
grand strategy and war games are, in my mind,
the pinnacle of the term "computer game."
Grand strategy itself is an offshoot of your mainstream strategy fare,
involving political and military conflict simulation at the scale
of an entire nation-state's resources.
That is, you're not controlling individuals or placing structures wherever you want,
but instead are coordinating a nation's infrastructure,
economy and population on a grand scale.
Europa Universalis takes elements of war games, real-time strategy
and kingdom management sims and
mixes them all up into a creamy soup
of history-soaked goodness.
There is no one single goal of the game,
and you probably won't even be playing the same way twice
due to the various starting and victory conditions.
but depending on the scenario and your own desires,
you'll be managing anything from a vast empire to a small nation
and expanding it as you see fit.
Largely, this will happen through trade, diplomacy and war,
though which of those receives the most attention is up to you.
On the right-hand three-quarters of the screen, you've got the map,
which shows any territories you own or have ties with,
as well as those of your allies, enemies and neutral parties.
This is also where you'll be exploring the known world for the time period,
since until you do, it remains terra incognita,
all covered up and unable to be interacted with.
So producing and moving around troops, traders and colonists
is vital to your expansion,
as is sharing maps with allies,
if you build up a strong enough relationship.
All of THAT stuff happens on the left-hand part of the screen,
which contains all sorts of context-sensitive information
for what you're doing over on the map,
as well as stats for things like battles, cities,
and your empire at large.
Along the bottom, you've got a message log
which keeps track of all notable events
and is most useful if you disable those messages popping up all the time.
And finally, along the top is the status bar
for your resources, population, political stability and the current date.
If you're familiar with Sid Meier's Civilization,
there's definitely a similar vibe going on here,
but the game plays very differently,
especially with its real-time gameplay,
as opposed to turn-based.
In fact, it could be overwhelming to have so much going on at once,
and you'll be pausing, speeding up and slowing down
the passage of time constantly.
This and the map navigation are two of my chief complaints, actually.
I just think they could be handled better,
and indeed in later games, they are.
But yeah, this first game is still incredibly playable,
and feels like a distinct entity compared to the Civilizations
and the even the Crusader Kings out there.
You know back when I reviewed King Arthur's Court,
and rambled on about how much I enjoy these types of territorial conquest things?
Yeah, so this is all of that
taken to another plane of existence entirely.
It's wonderful.
The joys of slowly taking over Asia,
or Western Europe, or just Ireland,
by use of force, trade, shrewd politics, or even arranged marriages,
is just endlessly satisfying.
I quite like the restrictions placed on the gameplay due to the time period, too,
since it forces a very specific set of things that can and will happen.
Now this is right when the Americas were being colonized
and world powers were shifting,
and there were all sorts of amazing new resources to trade
and new technologies being invented that were changing the face of war.
The gameplay may be overwhelming at times,
but once you get used to its quirks,
the experience is a comforting one,
and keeps me glued to the screen for an embarrassing number of hours.
Sometimes, a guy just wants to be the next Genghis Khan
and wreck the entirety of Asia.
Other times, you want to nestle into your island nation
and embrace xenophobia.
And if that gets boring, why not convert over to Paganism
and rile up the nearby Christian pope?
Or claim the throne of Milan
by way of some obscure ancestry that can't be proven – or disproven –
and start a feud that lasts hundreds of years.
Ahh, I love this!
And the fact that the dynamics of how you want to play
and how you're forced to play will change so much
depending on your chosen empire and financial situation, well,
that's all kinds of impressive.
And it shows just how much effort went into making each scenario so replayable
and making the various empires within them unique.
What is comes down to is Europa Universalis is a historical sandbox
that is as deep as it is wide,
and I never get enough of it.
Amazingly, the series only got deeper over the years,
and recent editions of the game are almost mind-bogglingly complex
in the most awesome ways.
But I still find the original to be a solid title all on its own,
and is kind of refreshing to go back to an EU game
that isn't quite as much of a monster in terms of complexity.
After all, for the most part, the history here hasn't changed,
only the methods to explore that history.
So in that way, games like this are completely timeless.
And if you enjoyed this look back at Europa Universe-Awesome,
then you might enjoy some of my other videos,
as well those that are set to arrive in the future.
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And as always, thank you very much for watching.