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The grandest strategy game ever made

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 16
Date: February 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game will leave you breathless. Its scope is huge and anyone remotely interested in history or strategy will have more than asked for. It is getting a cult following, sharing new scenarios and modified game variants over the internet.

It is for up to 8 players with a feeling that the more you play this game, the less you feel you know - and you play A LOT.

Buy this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: March 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you call yourself a wargaming fan of any type and you do not buy this game... YOU WILL MISS OUT ON SOMETHING GREAT!!! This game is awesome. I managed to get it a day before it was scheduled to be released and have been playing it since then. The political model is amazing and the economic and military models are not lacking much.

Besides such it is able to be played on lower end computers. Needing only 200 Mhz processor, 180 Megs of hard drive space and 68 Megs of RAM, it is not like many of the newer games that require you to spend several thousand on hardware to be able to play them.

BUY THIS GAME!!! YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED!!! As for me I'm getting offline to play it some more.

Most excellent game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: March 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is for anyone who likes their strategy to be historical & fun, the game is set in Europe between 1492-1792 and covers nearly every historical event in that period and it is up to you to guide your nation through those turbulent times with diplomacy, trade and of course war. The AI is one of the best I have played against, for instance while I was playing the game I had a large army besieging a Russian city and a much smaller Russian army was coming towards me but they did not charge suicidal at me, no they cut of my line of supply thus forcing me to lift the siege and retreat. If you like strategy games with depth intelligence and historical accuracy then you will love this game as I do.

Deep and satisfying

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: March 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is a game for those who love history and a challenge. You have to balance trade, exploration, religion, stability, diplomacy, science, and war to win. This has to be done constantly and with an eye to the future. It has more depth then Alpha Centauri (which I love) and better history then Civilization. This is a hard but satisfying game covering a fascinating period of history.

A veritable jewel in the strategy-gaming crown!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: March 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Europa Universalis is an incredible and deeply satisfing game, it combines some of the aspects of award-winning games such as Imperialism and Civalization II while adding a rich historical and cultural backdrop. While there are alot of aspects to master and the game does seem daunting at first, I found myself realy enjoying the experiance as I progressed. One word of strategy, though, in order to fully enjoy this game, you need to play it with a Machiavellian(sp?) bent. The only negative comment I would add is that the manual isn't nessisarily very well organized since there is no index which complicates matters if you're looking for a particular bit of info on a given facet of gameplay.

Europa Universalis

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: March 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome. The things that Imperialism was missing are made up in Europa Universalis. This game shows a great time period which has rarely been covered before, and the political system of the game can't be beat. If you like Alpha Centauri or Imperialism, get this too.

From Europe with love!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 17
Date: March 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

You will be amazed with the quality of this game from Paradox of Sweden. It may look like Risk and some might think it is a Civ game, there is a feel to this game. Ever wonder what if Austria got to colonize the Americas, or Russia? What happened if Columbus sailed more to the North? Turkish South Africa? This game allows you to do it all. A nice blend of political, historical and strategy. The grahics may not be like Quake, but this ia a thinking man's game. Each move has a chance to set the world in war. Marriage, alliance, and good old fashioned back stabbing. Well worth the money. Play and enjoy.

OK... Pick your jaw up off the floor...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 38 / 43
Date: March 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

... which is what you'll be telling yourself once you've opened the box and taken a look around in the manual. Let's leave the gameplay out of it for just a moment.

A NOTE TO GAMING COMPANIES: Take lessons from Paradox in how to write a manual. I don't think I've ever read a manual all the way through before playing the game before I bought EU. After EU I can't say that anymore. Yes, maybe it's a little light on explanation, but it is RICH in history and ambience. In my opinion, the people who are thinking about buying this game are history buffs in the first place, so writing a manual rich in historical background and atmosphere was a perfect complement to the game.

**Deep breath** All right... now about the gameplay. I have been an RPG/Strategy/Sim player since Zork and pre-Sid Meier, and in those years I have NEVER seen a game with this much depth. Pointing out only one aspect of it is to do injustice to the rest, but if I were to sit here and comment on everything in the game this review would be Tolstoy.

So... let me just comment on the diplomacy model. So, you want your country to be Protestant? Waitaminit... you have an alliance with Spain and Navarre (both Catholic) that has kept your fat out of the fire for years with France. Count them out of your group of friends. As a matter of fact, they may just take it upon themselves to cleanse your country of the Protestant "taint." Guess you'd better make nice with France, Savoy and Venice, all of whom are allied with each other and have been waiting for the right time to strike.

So, you're England and you have to deal with the "Scottish problem." Do you just go in and burn them out? Careful... they have powerful allies who will go to war with you if you do. In other games you had to suck it up and either let them live or bear the brunt of continued attacks from their allies. In EU if you have a peaceful bent (and patience) you can gradually pacify Scotland with a policy of honey rather than blood. Give them a few State Gifts, invite them to marry into the English Royal Family. Wait a while and invite them into a military alliance with you. Wait a little longer and make them a vassal of England. Wait still longer and eventually you can annex them into England. Voila! Scotland is now fully yours (or, more accurately, a part of England) without ever firing a shot (or ruining your reputation with other countries).

You see where I am going with this. I look back and see that I've written a lot. Friends, this is just the tip of a large iceberg. Very large. Titanic-sinker large. Buy this game. Buy a lot of Mountain Dew and Doritos. Buy your wife/husband some flowers and your kids some candy to pacify them, because once you buy this game you're going to be gone for a very, very long time.

Great game but...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 26 / 31
Date: April 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is a great piece of strategy gaming, but it's been overhyped. It is not as deep as the manual and some reviews would suggest -- for example, each province can have only one major improvement, technology tree is too linear, and armies and navy have only three types of units. Having said that I must admit that the game has set a new standard for both real-time and turn-based strategy games. Its strongest point is the realistic depiction of historical change. Its emphasis on stability, diplomacy, and economics over war and exploration is a fresh and welcome change of paradigm in the world of computer strategy games. The idea of earning points for different tasks would also be a good one if and only if the feature actually worked. This points to another problem with this game - bugs. Beginning with the CD-ROM's copyright software that almost prevents the owner from running the game, and ending with a point system that never calculates any points (after installing the 1.08NA patch it stopped working), the game needs some heavy duty bug fixing before it can compete with the likes of Civilization or Age of Empires.

This Is How It Should Be Done

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: April 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If Civilization series were the best strategy games you have ever played, Europa Universalis would definitely glue you to your seat for many hours. To say that it is equally good would be an injustice because it is in a class of its own.

It is an example that small software companies can produce some extraordinary works sometimes. And, undoubtedly, this game can become the one to beat in its category for months to come.

If Europa Universalis has a flaw, it is because of its depth. Thanks to the skin-deep plots and gameplays that offered by most of the other real-time strategy games, most of the gamers, I believe, have adapted to the typical way to victory -- building huge army and upgrading to new technologies as soon as possible. This is not going to work as an efficient way of beating the game in this case. So many times, when I thought that with the number of the armies that I had, I could conquer a neighboring province with ease, however, it turned out that either domestic unrest or the mightier enemy force combined allies would crush my ambition. At last, I came to the realization that I am dealing with a game that emphasizes on more than just military supremacy.

And, there comes the beauty of diplomacy when I started to look deeper into this game. I have always loved games with historical backgrounds but no others have provided more than Europa Universalis. The diplomacy element in this game has worked magics. It does not only add more strategic depth and replay value but a whole lot of "real-life" feels. Let us be rational. The best way to climb to the top is not to do it with just blunt aggression but also with some wits and tricks. At last, we have a game that would not require us to kill all others to win at the end. A civilized game that is.

No other games integrates historical elements more tightly than Europa Universalis, either. What is said in our history textbooks would happen in the game. We would play the man/woman behind the emperors like Elizabeth and Louis XIII. Puppeteer is the word, if you like. It is as if we have gone back in time and tried to rewrite the history already knowing all the major events and having to plot along and gain the most advantages out of them.

Another beauty found in this game would be its flexibility in decision making. To colonize or to just merely trade? To use aggression on the locals or to make peace? Almost nothing would restrict us from making the decision we really want to make. To be an ultra-aggressive imperialist or rich-seeking trader, the choice is always ours.

A review would not give a picture of all the extraordinary elements in this game. It is just like a beautiful movie. You just have to see it for yourself. To me, the diplomatic part of this game alone would have already lured me into hours of playing. With other elements like nationalism, religions, and military operations, I deeply believe Europa Universalis is equipped with all the tools to make it to the top.

If it does not, that is because it is not published by Microsoft.

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