Europa Universalis

DEVELOPER : Paradox 
PUBLISHER : StrategyFirst

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System Requirements Pentium 200MHz, Win 95/98/ME/2000, 64MB RAM

Recommended Pentium III 450MHz, 128 MB RAM

Ratings
Code Issues Graphics: 8.0 - Nothing terribly fancy, but very nice map graphics, animated unit sprites with great historical detail. Audio: 7.5 - Good, unobtrusive music, useful effects tied to events. Some sounds get 'stuck' when paused or saving. Interface: 9.5 - Exceedingly complex, but for a complex game. Ubiquitous tooltips (two layers!) and the ability to fully customize alert messages. Wonderful.	Play Issues Solo Play: 10.0 - Balanced, addictive. In a class with Civ or Imperialism. 'Just let me finish this war….ok, now, just let me annex one more. Then I'll go to sleep….' Multiplay: 8.5 - even better than solo, if that's possible. The AI is tough, but humans are mean. Takes a big hit for the very high bandwidth (300 kbps required) necessary, though. Basically not playable over modem - only LAN, cable, or the better DSL connections need apply. Replayability: 9.0 - Many scenarios, the Grand Campaign alone can take over 300 (!) hours to play. Only minus is a fixed map - but it's going to take you ages to flush it out, so it's not that big a deal. Learning Curve: 6.5 - The game is not designed for the strategy newbie. However, utter realism makes easier to play. Think of things in real world terms and usually it's right.
Other/Notes Documentation - 8.0 - Extensive manual (120+ pages) including a fairly deep and thorough 30 page history of the era that could serve as the text for a survey history course. Disappointing lack of index or table of contents to be rectified by Strategy First very shortly. Miscellaneous: +0.5 for covering a (in the USA) little-known and less-gamed piece of history. +0.25 for outstanding customer support - prompt patches, participatory developers in the forum. No score bonus, but it's hilarious seeing another fight break out in comp.sys.pc.games.war-historical. Pros: It's electronic crack. No lie. Cons: It's electronic crack. No lie. Overall: 9.5

I like to think that, in regards Europa Universalis, I was a little better prepared than most. After all, I wrote SGO's extensive preview on the game. I had played a very late beta and had seen pretty much what the game was capable of doing to an otherwise healthy, active adult.

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Of course, that's utter crap.

When UPS dropped off the retail package of EU, I actually hadn't played it much recently. A fairly busy review schedule, travel, and Real Life ™ kept me from going back to it. So I dashed upstairs, confident that I could fire the game up, play for an hour or two to get some interesting screenies, and be back down to watch the Simpsons at 7:00. HA. Next time I remember looking at the clock, it was 2:10 am. I remember, my first thought was "3 hours before I have to get up…hrm, I can probably take Venetia completely out in another couple of wars and still have an hour to sleep!"

Europa Universalis is an addictive representation of the great-power struggles throughout Europe and the rest of the world, from 1492 to 1792. It's a real-time port of an apparently popular but massively complicated boardgame of the same name - not a great deal unlike the more widely known (in the states) Napoleonic-era Empires in Arms. You play one of the main international actors of the time: Portugal, Spain, France, England, Sweden, Austria, Russia, or Turkey (that is, in the grand campaign game; other scenarios have different or limited lists of playable states depending on the circumstances).

Let's get one thing addressed right off the bat. The 'real-time' part of the game may startle some, and may even cause die-hard turn-based players to dismiss EU as not worth playing. This is totally wrong - don't use this as a deciding factor. First of all, it's more like 'constant-time' than real-time. Time passes constantly but at a rate totally determined by the player. Speed it up, slow it down, whatever. You can even issue orders while fully paused if needed. I'm a turn-based player myself, but I see a significant benefit to the constant-time aspect. It's a realistic simulation of the necessities of focus and attention faced by any government. It does NOT turn the game into a clickfest. If a major war is raging in Europe, you may spend those months with the screen zoomed in over Milan (for example), busily raising troops and moving armies. It is both natural and believable that you might forget about some tiny troop of explorers wasting away from attrition in some wilderness in Hispaniola. In the real world, it was not uncommon for garrisons, colonies, and far-flung outposts to be ignored or almost totally abandoned when a big war broke out in someplace more important. Some people may be inflexibly opposed to the time clock running, but I strongly feel that this is a very positive aspect of EU as a whole.

In every game of EU, there are two distinct levels of competition in at least six different arenas, which are all interdependent and related, making it a devilishly hard game to summarize in a review. The key of course is in the artful blending and interdependence of them. The venues of conflict are not novel; we've seen almost all of them before in various other games: economics, diplomacy, technology, military, exploration/colonization, and (the new one) religion. In each of these, the player contends not only with the other players (or the AI) but also with the game engine and environmental circumstances, meaning that in a sense you're juggling a dozen different situations simultaneously.

Of course all of these things develop naturally to various levels of importance from a state's starting context - their neighbors, relationships, financial situation, etc. For example, Austria's concern with exploration and colonization is naturally far less than Portugal's. It is here that Paradox first displays its skill. Historical game designers have a challenging mandate. They not only have to develop a stable, balanced, and robust game engine, but they have to perform intense historical research to make sure the starting conditions are correct AND the possible events in the game are historically justifiable (or at least plausible).

EU's historicity is irrefutable and a major attraction to the game. Each state, for example, has a historical listing of monarchs (each rated for diplomatic, administrative, and military skill levels) who appear and die at appropriate times - 163 distinct leaders from Sweden's Gustavus Adolphus to Louis XIV to Frederick the Great. Nearly 650 historical military leaders are equally well detailed. Troops themselves are fairly generic (more on that in the military section) but are represented by icons very carefully crafted to represent both national uniforms and local styles typical to the province in which they are raised. As Austria, for example, troops raised in Tyrol look like musketeers while troops raised in Bohemia appear totally different. Likewise, intense research has been accomplished for accurate national and local flags, names, resources, and everything else - unlike a Civ or Imperialism that can safely hide behind their abstractions, EU has no such camouflage. By and large, they succeeded. Certainly, there are the occasional misspellings (corrected AFAIK by the US release which includes all the patches from the previously-released Swedish and German versions to date) but I (and the forum opinions as well) admire the quality and bulk of the research done for this game. No small credit is also due to the startlingly erudite and knowledgeable crew of beta testers, as I mentioned in the preview.

Economics and the State

The first indicator of a state's health is its Stability. Ranging from +3 to -3 (again, shades of EiA) this represents a host of intangibles, but is basically the confidence of the people in the government. At +3, everything is humming along nicely - folks are getting paid, populations are growing, people are paying their taxes, and everyone is content. Down around +1, fractious provinces will start to consider rebellion and neighbors will begin to cast covetous glances at your outlying territories. Below -2, the state is in chaos. Revolutionary armies are popping up everywhere, and the vultures begin to circle as all your enemies (and some of your so-called friends) decide that perhaps they can do a better job ruling your people than you can.

One of the main ways to manage your Stability is with your cashflow. A state's income has to be allocated to many things - army maintenance, navy maintenance, and technology. States draw wealth from their provincial tax revenues, domestic industry, gold mines, and trade (and the occasional reparation payment if they're lucky). Of course, this can be spent on building troops, fortifications, and so on, but the first portion of your income will go to investments such as military technologies and infrastructure. Not investing everything will leave you with money in the bank on a monthly basis. Liquid cash might seem handy, and it is - being able to plunk down the dinero NOW for an army in the right place can mean the difference between winning and losing a war. But holding onto cash has a cost. EU follows a Monetarist theory, holding that a surplus of money in the economy raises the specter of inflation which, if sustained, can irrevocably cripple a country over a long span of years. Loans, the lifeblood of the Houses of Europe throughout this period, are of course available. Interest rates depend on your stability and reputation, and are reasonable enough to start that a prudent statesman always considers them an available option. But taking loans also affects your stability, and while you can take multiple loans out, the rates become successively ruinous. Fail to repay them in a timely manner, and your entire country can collapse into anarchy.

Trade is almost an entire game in and of itself, and is executed through a pretty clever mechanic. Traders - accumulated at different rates over the year depending on a state's religion, number of port cities, etc. - are sent to various 'centers of trade' (CoT) to compete for financial gain. Each province contributes a small proportion of its income both to its owning state and to the CoT for its region. Therefore, each CoT generates a total income based on the revenues of the provinces within its trading zone. These zones overlap national boundaries, and are based on historical patterns of commerce. So the Genoa CoT may range along the Mediterranean coast from Pisa to the Pyrenees, and may be credibly considered to be in the 'sphere of interest' of at least a half-dozen different states. Any country that has provinces in this zone has some of its external trade income funneling through that CoT, and will probably compete to monopolize trade through that center. Within each CoT, there are six 'tiers' of competition. Merchants begin on the lowest tier and compete commercially against everyone on that same tier. If they succeed, they climb to the next tier, gaining larger and larger proportions of the trade for that CoT. Ultimately, they may reach the top level (monopoly) and they gain the lion's share of the revenue, as well as ALSO getting the incomes for every unoccupied 'merchant space' in the CoT, meaning big bucks over time.

Of course, the bigger and richer this pie becomes, the more states send merchants to get a piece of the action. The end result is that the richest CoT's see a flurry of activity in which it's almost impossible to hold onto a monopoly for long. Alert players can occasionally find a smaller, less central CoT where they quickly establish a monopoly and end up being a bigger fish in a smaller pond, so to speak. However, some of the testers didn't enjoy the micromanagement this regime required (which was substantial). If you feel that this might detract from the execution of the game itself, Paradox put in a very competent auto-manage feature - just activate and forget about it.

All in all, the economics rules may seem complicated. Internally, they are. If that's your bag, you can certainly dive in and come up with advantages and efficiencies that less-attentive players won't see. But execution is a lot simpler than it sounds here, and most players will find that they don't need to be Alan Greenspan to manage a successful economy.

Technology

A static economy is stagnant. Success comes through growth and growth comes from investment. In EU, there are five different 'tech' tracks in which funds can be invested. Land and naval technology are pretty much self-explanatory. The tech tracks are linear - there are no 'branches' ala Civilization, for example. But they are extensive and comprehensive, with the respective techs affecting everything from combat effectiveness, available troop types, and mobility. Land tech level 34 is "Grapeshot", raising units' morale and making them more effective in the fire combat phase. Naval tech involves improvements not only in fighting capability, but sea-keeping, and mobility, such as tech 16 allowing Shipyards (which can construct more ships simultaneously).

"Stability" is a direct investment in public relations, and will increase a troubled state's stability rating over time. Trade levels make international transactions much more profitable, and allows more and more sophisticated exploitation of overseas trading posts. Infrastructure has to do with the improvement of domestic industry, and allows the player to eventually invest in manufactories, armories, breweries, and other local profit centers. Additionally, infrastructure has a lot to do with administration, and high levels of infrastructure tech allow the appointment of officials to provincial offices such as bailiffs (who increase tax collection with a commensurate rise in revolt %) or governors (who reduce the rate of revolt and inflation).

The last slider "to Treasury" controls how much of your annual income is not invested, and is turned into liquid cash for spending on other necessities.

Tech development isn't an afterthought. Like everything in EU it's deeply intertwined with everything else. Tech advance is propelled significantly by money, but it is substantially influenced by all the other things you might expect - tech levels of your neighbors, your religious outlook, etc.

Diplomacy

While managing the dollars and cents of your empire, the wise statesman must also keep a weather eye on the diplomatic winds swirling through Europe. The diplomatic model is robust, and complex. First, the Grand Campaign starts with more than 90 (yes, ninety) active states. As a strategy gamer, I was impressed to find that each of these ninety states has its own AI algorithm. Granted, only a dozen or so have unique, tweaked AI's that represent national characters - each of the others is assigned a 'default' set of starting characteristics. They don't just sit there waiting for you to act. During each turn, they are each weighing their options, managing their relations with their neighbors, exploring, and developing as vigorously as any of the main AI opponents. This means that there is a LOT going on at any given moment, making EU very sensitive to available RAM. It ran far faster on a 300 MHz with 192 MB than it did on a 600 MHz with 64 MB. It also means the AI is always acting from priorities and not scripts, making it exceptionally flexible and credible.

The diplomatic structure of the Old World was very formalized, and is well represented in EU. Declarations of war require a 'casus belli' (the legalistic phrase representing a legally justified reason for going to war), or they cost you in terms of your stability (2 points, actually). Diplomatic actions can directly contribute to your victory point total, such as ending a war (successfully). More often than not, you'll need to be a skilled diplomat just to get along with other states, and the rewards are instrumental, not intrinsic.

The AI plays crafty and aggressive neighbors. Not all are enemies, of course. Every country has a relationship with every other country that it knows exists, from +200 (best of friends) to -200 (despised and hated enemies, represented on the political map by shades of green and red respectively). Usually these are set at start by the scenario designers to reflect certain historical realities of the time, but they are mostly free to rise and fall following the course of events. The full gamut of relationships are possible, from complex webs of alliances, to vassalization and political annexation if the circumstances are ripe. Your diplomatic wishes are carried out by a corps of envoys (accumulated at a rate based on your monarch's diplomatic skill, state religion, etc.) giving you a constant but limited number of diplomatic 'actions' you can take over time. Expensive gifts may be given to other governments, hopefully raising the relationship (although a ruler with an abysmal diplomatic rating can actually muff it and make the relationship rating sink). There are also a host of insults that can be handed out to poison the atmosphere at any time - those are for free. In a novel development (I can't recall ever seeing in another product) new international actors can be 'born' naturally and fully functional within the events of the game. For example, if a peasant revolt is not attended to (i.e. crushed mercilessly) promptly, eventually their force will grow stronger and (if not part of the initial revolt) will seize the province's city. Once that's happened it is only a matter of time before the rebel army attacks another nearby province, possibly sending that into revolt as well. After a longer while, eventually the rebellious provinces will gain diplomatic recognition from other states and suddenly that province (or provinces, if the spread has been successful) become their own independent state! This is no brainless rump, either. This country is given a full AI just like all the others, and will pursue its own agenda - against its parent usually but not always. Thus you can have things like the American Revolution. This is not a script; this is not an action 'planned' into the engine to take place at a certain point and time. The game engine itself simply weighs events and this is a logical possibility. One of the hardest parts for new players to 'get' about EU is the different mindset of the international system of the time. EU takes a period-correct view of the whole balance of power. Sweeping total war hasn't yet been invented. Attempting to actually conquer another major state - affecting the balance of the entire system - was totally anathema, and anyone who tried it was held a pariah. Limited wars for territorial gain, however, were perfectly legitimate.

EU manages the diplomatic relations to (at least) a second-degree level: your actions not only affect your relationships toward the target, but to their friends and those states relationship to you. Conquering Savoy? It's not a hard task, but when you ignore that Savoy had royal marriages and good relations with many minor states, don't be surprised when you start to see the political map turning red and alliances forming against you. Further, the game keeps track internally of what might be called a 'badboy' rating. This is a realistic corrective mechanism to offset a player with a blitzkrieg mentality. No matter your justification, as you annex smaller states you are gradually and increasingly perceived to be a self aggrandizing megalomaniac, dangerous to those around you. The 15th-18th centuries were not eras of nation building, and players who attempt it will eventually see all of their neighbors joining forces to eliminate the 'universal menace'. Eventually, you will be faced with a peace settlement - either making an offer, or having one forced upon you. Again, it's a fairly neat mechanic. As the fortunes of war have gone for or against you, the peace settlement screen assigns up to 6 stars or tombstones respectively. In the peace settlement you can transfer ownership of provinces or pay reparations, at a rate of 250 ducats per (star or tombstone) or a transferred province for 2. If you are offering a settlement, be warned - the AI isn't stupid in accepting peace terms. Generosity (that is, asking for less than you're entitled to) will result in a quick acceptance, while greediness will cause even a defeated enemy to entrench and refuse the settlement, hoping for something better. Nothing makes you feel stupider than asking for too much, having the offer summarily rejected, and then reeling backward as your seemingly-defeated opponent's allies land troops all over your nearly-undefended shores, screwing you totally.

Military

Long before Mao wrote it down, statesmen understood that the ultimate instrument of diplomacy is the gun. A game like this could very easily have devolved into a military simulation, with a great deal if time and attention spent on the composition, management, and deployment of military forces. EU (wisely, I think, to sustain the 'strategic' level of player participation) chose instead to leave the military activity at a fairly broad, generalized level. Armies are made up of infantry (cheap), cavalry (more expensive but tough), and, with high enough land tech, artillery.

A General, either generic or historical, leads each army from the extensively-researched lists in the game. Each commander has ratings for their skill at maneuver, fire combat, shock combat, and siege values, as well as a rank. The highest rank will automatically command a stack if two or more forces are merged - the player otherwise has control of who leads whom.

Forces are moved around the map, time-to-destination being calculated on the weather and terrain being crossed. Way point finding is very good, and a progress bar shows clearly how far away the army is from its destination - I've spent many a time anxiously watching the progress bar of a troop, nervously hoping it makes it into position to intercept an invasion force.

Battles are pretty simple affairs for the player, but their resolution is rather subtle. There are multiple phases to combat - the various generals' maneuver ratings helping them try to gain an advantage at the start (or the weather gauge for naval combat). Fire combat follows. The last is the shock phase where, if they survived the fire combat, cavalry butchers everyone. Then it repeats.

Technological advance - obviously slower in these centuries than now - nevertheless makes combat distinctly different over time. In the 1400' and 1500's, really up to the Thirty Years' War, shock is the dominant factor. Cavalry is invaluable, and the commander joining combat allowing an opponent cav superiority is suicidal. By the 1700's, it's clear that artillery has become the queen of the battlefield and while cavalry continues to inflict disproportionate casualties in the shock phase, they suffer terrifically to get there. Few combats run 'to the last man', since EU models morale as well. While casualties are applied in every phase, each force's morale changes based on their success/failure in the battle, retreating when it reaches zero regardless of the current odds. Thus it's very possible (and credible) that a small, confident force can hold off a much larger army. However, even a quickly-routed larger army will cause so many casualties that the small force will eventually evaporate at successive assaults.

One very, very critical aspect of warfare of this time is attrition. Medical care was nonexistent, camps were filthy, pestilential places, and the scum that were generally the core of an army was not much interested in improving their lot other than deserting at the first chance they could. EU models attrition superbly. Armies in the field are brittle. Keep them standing in a rich province in the summer and it's not too hard to keep them fed and healthy. But deploy them for combat, force march them long distances or through bad weather and they'll melt away like so many ice cubes. One forum poster complained that his 10,000-man army (in November) was only 6500 at the following March. He'd had them stationed in a mountainous region, through a hard winter (noted by the province turning from brown to white on the game map), and a region that had low support values. This is totally realistic, and forces players to consider standing down armies that aren't actually needed.

Likewise, units aboard ship are strongly affected by attrition. Until higher levels of naval tech are achieved, you are forced to acquire 'stepping stones' of ports to distant destinations, allowing the frequent re-setting of the attrition levels. The alternative is to lose 50% or more of colonization forces sent from Europe to the New World, for example. My only beef with the military system are the manpower limits. Each state has a cumulative 'surplus manpower' figure that accumulates over time, based on stability and provincial population. This is essentially realistic. What bothers me about it is that you can 'tap out' - recruit so many troops that you're sitting, waiting for this number to increase so you can raise more soldiers. That's not realistic. This was before the era of national armies - the idea that there was ever a time when there weren't thousands of mercenaries waiting for immediate employment strains the limits of credulity. However, I confess that the only time I've reached such limits is when I used a cheat code to get extra cash, so while it bothers me a little, it's not that big a deal.

Exploration/Colonization

Another way to make money is to develop overseas colonies, and establish or find new CoT's that nobody else knows about. The map extends across the globe, with more than 800 land provinces and 550+ sea zones - there's plenty of elbow room for opportunists and adventurers. Your explorers and conquistadors are exactly the men for the job, especially in the early games. (Until you reach a certain level of Land Tech, they are the only ones that can enter 'terra incognita' sea or land zones respectively.) Typically, these individuals are also exceptional military leaders, protect troops with them from most attrition effects, and have bonuses for dealing with the frequently-hostile natives one might encounter abroad.

As they explore, the "fog" of ignorance is peeled back, revealing new lands and valuable new resources like tobacco and spices. In one sense, this is probably one of the only disappointments of the game: everyone knows that the New World is there, and that there's gold in South America, for example. It's an intractable problem for any "historical" game developer really - how do you offset the hindsight of 21st Century players? Paradox did make some lands permanent 'terra incognita' - they can never be entered or explored - based on what was known by 1792.

Colonists, like merchants and manpower, accumulate over time at a rate based on your religion, national outlook, and number of ports. Introspective states like Russia will have few, while aggressively expansionist Portugal is literally swimming in colonists. Once you've developed the appropriate tech, you can build colonies in discovered lands, guaranteeing that your state will receive the financial benefits of the resources there. Colonials have a tough time; they are vulnerable to severe attrition, native attacks, and the predations of your enemies. They almost always require constant infusions of fresh troops from home (historically accurate; throughout the era ships crossed the seas, laden with poor bastards doomed to die in a tropical paradise of some horrible malady). Over time, and with a significant investment of treasure, colonies can grow to become full-fledged provincial cities, giving you a key foothold in the region for later expansion. Another method of getting into a region is to build a trading post, which requires higher tech and is far more vulnerable, but for the cash-strapped may be the only choice.

Religion

Paying attention to religion is critical to the maintenance of a stable state, and Paradox should be credited for being the first publisher with the courage to make religion a very serious and significant part of a computer game. Every province can be one of a half-dozen different faiths (some only available after certain random events have taken place). Each state has a slider where you can set the levels of tolerance (or not) for each of the extant religions, which has a direct and significant effect on the levels of revolt in regions whose religion is different from that of the state.

Religion is a double edged sword. It's usually the source of a permanent casus belli, allowing you to opportunistically attack an enemy without a hit to your stability. But if you succeed and annex provinces, you gain territories with foreign religions - certain to revolt at the slightest pretext, and be the target for constant revanchist attacks. Only in certain circumstances will you have the opportunity to forcibly convert them to your faith. On the other hand, religion can be the source of enduring alliances as well. After certain random events, you will have the opportunity to change your state religion. This has an immediate effect of breaking your alliances with all co-religionists, but it also improves your relations to all states of the new faith significantly. Further, depending on the switch, you can gain money, increase your diplomatic, colonist, or merchant rates, improve your stability, etc. The consequences may be traumatic in the short term, but ultimately it should be considered in terms of its long term political benefits - it's worth keeping in mind as an option.

One thing I haven't touched on yet is the ease with which this game is converted. Granted, the map is fixed. That's serious codework. But all the configuration information, stats, and rosters are in simple text files available for hacking at your heart's content. In fact, the Europa website already has a number of scenarios focusing on different regions (although these were created for the German and Swedish versions; I'm not sure how they'd work yet with the US version). There is even an improved Grand Campaign that fixes some spelling errors and makes a few tweaks along the way. One after-action report even details a campaign played as the Papal States - certainly such a scenario means you're not going to be spending time considering if you should colonize Indonesia, but it can clearly be an interesting and smaller-scale challenge.

In Conclusion

I've used the term 'realistically' over and over again. There is no other single word that sums up EU as well. EU excels at representing a historically credible experience, without straightjacketing the players into simply repeating history. The experience is deep and rich, with so many factors weighing on every decision it almost feels like real life. In that context it's worth noting again that this game could very easily be used as the source material for collegiate-level history courses. All the basic systemic elements of international relations are present, and the AI states follow a logical course of behavior that takes little or no rationalization. The dynamics of alliance politics are particularly evident, and were a class to study international relations by the taking of the various state roles (thus allowing the human element in diplomatic negotiations), I could see the source for many a hefty research paper. I've always been firmly convinced that people who like to criticize and comment on international politics should play a game like this to really understand how the web of relationships can leave a leader with very few options. It used to be that Empires in Arms was my favorite game of all time for this reason; after a few turns you were truly IN the game, and might feel - however briefly - something of what the leaders of those times felt. Can there be a better educational experience? But the problem with these games is that as boardgames, they are too complicated to teach and take way too long to play. I didn't have time to finish a game when I was a college student - what chance do I have now that I'm up to my neck in real life? Paradox has now given us that complete experience on the computer, and frankly I don't forsee that it will ever leave my hard drive.

I can see if you don't have much time, or don't have an interest in history at all. But outside of that, if you don't buy this game, you're nuts.

If you like to comment on this review, please post a message at the forum.
Reviewed by Steve Lieb