Gameplay & Interface

Crikee, where do I start?

Europa isn't your typical strategy game. For one, while it has the complexity and depth of a turn-based game or even boardgame, it is played in real-time. Time can pass at a rate of 2 real minutes per month of game time, or 2 game years per real minute - this is all adjustable by you. In addition, you can pause the game with the 'Pause' button (way over past the F12 key), if you have the need. To top things off, the game can auto-pause at any event.

A good move - Spain is your natural ally, after all

Not many diplomats

When you first start the game, almost every event has a pop-up window. You will get notified when a merchant you sent out has established himself in a Center of Trade, or if he has been driven out of business by competition. Every time your armies or fleets reach their destination, every time someone declares war, offers peace or attacks one of your armies - you'll get notified. Just right-click the pop-up and you have up to four options. Either there will be no notification at all for this kind of event, or you can move this kind of pop-up into the status bar below, have it pop up normally or even have it pop up and pause. The interface is ingenious, to say the least.

The game revolves around VPs - Victory Points. You get points for winning battles, completing missions, good diplomacy, keeping up with technology and expanding your empire. The most typical setting is whoever has the most points by 1792, wins. You can change this to whoever reaches X number of points first, but the 1492-1792 game is typically the most common.

Life, the universe, and everything

Besides its real-time aspect, the major difference between EU and say... Civilization or Risk is diplomacy and the sense of time and scale. EU tries to be very accurate to conditions in Europe at the time. For one, by 1492 Europe had begun developing the concept of the Balance of Power - that no single state nor coalition of states could be allowed to grow too powerful, lest it overwhelm the others. Thus, success did not always breed success - in fact, if you were too successful, your competitors would re-double their efforts to strike you down and even neutral nations would join in to fight you off (ask Louis XIV of France, if you don't believe me.)

That's how Centers of Trade work

The political view

Also, unlike Civilization or even Imperialism, there is no 'Total War' in the Clausewitzian view. Wars are not between countries and nations. Wars are between kings and their armies. Historically, in Europe, it was almost unheard of to completely annex a country, nevermind a rival Power. You might hold the capital and all its major cities, but at most you would demand a few provinces here and there. Even though Europe's population was bouncing back and countries again counted in the millions, the armies were relatively small - 50,000 - 100,000 men at the most participated in battles. The nations did not wage wars on thousand-mile long fronts, but rather sought combat on fields of battle (actually, more often they avoided combat and just attempted to siege cities - battles often occured when an army appeared to relieve the siege.) War was not the same then as it is now - it was a very limited war.