The Concept

Developer: Paradox Entertainment
Publisher: Strategy First
Europa Universalis 2 official page: http://www.europa-universalis.com/

World conquest, world perspective

The original Europa Universalis was as fine a strategy game as we’ve ever seen here at FiringSquad. Combining strongly executed elements of diplomacy, religion, trade, conquest and balance of power it is by far the best historical strategy game ever.

Its weaker points, such as the graphics and sound effects, did nothing to detract from its addictiveness and remarkably deep gameplay. EU suffered from some other issues that gamers felt the need to address – such as the inability to play smaller nations. These flaws were quickly remedied by mod teams, who took advantage of plain-text data files to fix historical inaccuracies, correct imbalances, and introduce ‘what-if’ scenarios.

Load and look around

That would be my Papal States

Religions of the various nations

It’s all about the history

The EU games are concerned with the grand sweep of history from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. They must walk a fine line between keeping events historical and plausible, and giving the player enough freedom to do things that his chosen country had not or could not have done at that point in history. Possible historical events such as “what if the English HAD conquered France in the 100 Years’ War?” can be answered here. Historically, they had – Henry V beat France into submission and Charles VI accepted Henry as his son-in-law and heir. If Henry had been healthier and lived a mere two months longer, he would have been king of both England and France.

How would have history unfolded then? Assuming the English player is capable of conquering France, you can see a potential future history. As France, would you lead it into the glory it experienced under Napoleon, or would that just be unnecessary since you’ve already conquered the world? Or, under your inept leadership, did it lose any chance of glory long before the Revolution?

From all those conquests, no one likes me

Papal States had royal marriages?

Damn missions forced me to go to war

Europa Universalis started in 1492, when the general make-up of Europe was quite similar to the way it ended in 1792 (with only Russia, Austria and Poland having significant border changes.) Nations also lacked character – historical events were few and far between. They followed historical paths, but those were quite rigid. You could always count on Spain to colonize all of Latin America, or that Russia would almost always expand into the East. Other than that, nothing really happened to them.

Europa Universalis II, on the other hand, adds a whole slew of historical events. These are added onto volatile countries whose borders were far from stable, and quite different from what they ended up being in the end.