***Warning, Review contain vulgar- Ah who am I kidding, you really don't care***
I have been a fan of the Paradox Interactive Grand Strategy games for a long time. Victoria II was the first Grand Strategy game I ever played (But we'll get to that). I became interested in the series and wanted to find more games like it.
I had received uncountable recommendations for Europa Universalis III. Many proclaimed it the best of the series, and I wanted to test that claim. So began my long escapade into the map-painting simulator that is Europa Universalis III.
My experience began when I started up my game as I was greeted by the image of a Samurai shouting as somebody offscreen and I was notified I had purchased the "Divine Wind" expansion of the game that includes the Shogunate. Of course, I had actually purchased Chronicles. However, this brings up a very valid point about this game.
On the Steam Store, there are two version of Europa Universalis III present. One version is titled as "Complete" and the other is "Chronicles" Now, let me ask you, which one of those contains all expansions? If you said Complete, you are wrong as shit. For some odd reason, Complete is not actually, well, "Complete." It has only two of the 4 expansions. Why on Earth did they do this? Well, if you very kindly ask a Dev on the Forums why, they will reply by bludgeoning you to death with their mighty banhammer.
So now that you know which version to purchase, let's begin the game. I went into EU3 about as blind as a, um, blind person, so I had no idea what I was doing. I was hoping past knowledge might provide me with all the answers I needed.
Nope.
Starting EU3 without help for me was like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube with my arms tied behind my back... and with all the stickers taken off of it. It didn't help that I made possibly one of the hardest choices for a country to play as, being Brandenburg.
Let me provide you with a helpful list of the top 5 nations a starting player should choose:
1.France
2.France
3.France
4.France
5. Spa- Oh wait, no, sorry, my judgement failed me for a second there. Where was I? Oh yes, and France.
As you can tell, I was about to get destroyed. Still, I started on my hopeless quest to try and form Prussia and eventually unite the Duetscheland. My first order of business was to declare war on Pommerania (A nation I will presume was ruled by poodles) and take all of their nice shit. I clicked on one of their provinces and looked for my "Declare War" option. It was grey.
Godammit, what now.
Well, it turns out I was in a personal union with Luxembourg, meaning they effectively ruled my country. Naturally, I was pissed, and I consulted the wiki for the first of many times. Turns out, I either had to wait for the fuck leading for the personal union to die (Keep in mind, he was in his 20's. I would have to wait at least 50 years for him to die.) The other option was to declare war, provided by the wikis helpful warning that the Emperor would kindly run to Luxembourg's aid.
Shit, Emperor? Oh crap, I forgot the Holy Roman Empire was still around back then.
So I frantically scrambled across my screen looking to identify the Emperor, but I found nothing. I sat there with my thumb up my ass looking for a way to identify the Emperor, but I found NOTHING.
My effort seemed futile. That was it, the game was over simply because I could not identify the Emperor.
I moved my cursor to the "Menu" button when I noticed a peculiar button on the side of the screen with the famous two-headed eagle inscribed on it.
Son of a bitch.
I felt about as intelligent as a sack of bricks. I had missed the ONE TINY FUCKING BUTTON for the HRE screen. Well ain't I off to a wonderful start.
As I continued my escapade I found two things of mention on that screen. First off, I noticed I was one of 8 (Or 9, my memory fails me at the moment) electors who would decide who the next emperor was. The current one was Bohemia, which was my fairly large neighbor to my South. Their sigil looked uncannily similar to House Lannister's from a Song of Ice and Fire, so I immediately had a valid reason to hate them. I also noticed every other elector besides Bohemia was backing Austria, the already fuckhuge nation South of Bohemia. However, one peculiarity was that I was not backing either. Hell, I wasn't even backing myself! Instead, I was backing the scrawny, one province nation of Luxembourg.
I had already had enough of my tiny overlord. The fact that they claimed all leadership over my lands was pitiful enough, but it was laughable considering the fact that their military was virtually non-existent.
So I cast a vote in for myself, like the cheeky bastard I was. Not more than 2 years later, the old Emperor, Massivus Prickus or some shit, died of being an old fart. So now Austria took his place and immediately trained it's army to be even more fuckhuge. Austria had no way, land or sea, to reach and occupy Brandenburg.
I was now inclined to declare war on my ruler. I was finally free! My current leader, Jobst von Fuxembourg (see what I did there) was overthrown and replaced by a member of the Oldenburg lineage, which sadly sucked more. But hey, I was free to choose my own destiny!
After a few years of doing almost nothing (I tried to figure out the trading system and failed, so I just cheated in 5000 cash and was done with it) I finally wormed peace out of Luxembourg. I presume they were far to bored to continue the fight, or maybe it was because that the other fuckhuge nation of Burgundy had occupied (and later annexed) them. As they whimpered like little bitches, I decided I would set myself upon a path of uniting Prussia!
I trained my military and declared war on Pommerania. Pommerania cried to their big neighbor, the Teutonic Order to fight back. Unfortunately, I lacked the full Muslim capacity to fight them religiously, but I still beat them back at Danzig. I annexed Pmommerania but continued my war with the Teutons, hoping to acquire Ostpruessen and be done with it. Sadly, there were some fuckups along the way. Some very, very major fuckups. Somehow, multiple wars started throughout Eastern Europe. Bohemia (oddly enough, my ally), Austria, and me wound up in a vicious war with Poland and Hungary. I only went to war with Hungary, and both were soon promptly decimated by the endless HRE doomstacks.
With their force "layeth upon thee," the Bohemians and Austrians ended their brief escapade into war. It took approximately 9 years for me to occupy the Teutons. In the meantime, I somehow ended up fighting France as their tiny and useless allies nipped at my heels like small, if heavily armed, Chihuahua's. I fought them back and acquired the Hansa, Holstein, Luneburg, and some more useless shit. "Yay me" I thought. But victory was short lived. The Emperor (who was now Bohemia again, most likely because everyone else caught on to the fact that I was an imperialistic asshole hellbent on the complete destruction of the Empire) slapped "unlawful imperial territory" on all of my new claims. Everywhere.
What a dick. A funny story is that I had also conquered 2 provinces from them in a minor war, and they probably wanted them back.
Meanwhile, on the Teutonic front, I had occupied nearly everything. One enemy province, called Ingermanland, had been occupied for so long the governor just declared himself part of my nation. Well gee, thanks dude. It was also about this time I discovered I could rename provinces, so Ingermanland became Mr. Manland in honor of sirs Spike and Barley, Dukes of Youtubia.
I had taken everything except one tiny island of their in the northern half of their country. I tried figuring out why I couldn't, when I realized that the Hansa had blockaded all of my ports. "Wait, I thought I annexed those guys?" Turns out, Bremen was still in their control. I had to wait several years before the Mongol Horde took over the island instead, meaning I could no longer annex them. They were promptly kicked out by a Hansa invading force though. My new, reformed navy had finally finished construction, and it was enough to tide over the Hansa's forces long enough for me to take the island.
I went to annex them and was promptly greeted with the message "You can not annex this nation because the total infamy limit of their provinces is too high"
FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
"Well two can play at that game, game" I said out loud. I opened the console and typed "annex TEU" and before my very eyes the once black territory had now turned some horrible, sickly brown color that is Brandenburg.
Hooray...
From there, I did my best to ignore the Emperor, who continued to slap "Unlawful imperial" bullshit on every province, but I didn't care. Other matters called me to arms, specifically a Call to Arms from England asking me if I wanted to go kick some French ass.
"Sure, why not," I thought carelessly. I was an ignorant and stupid person for accepting that.
I sent my force to France, and they were promptly killed in a genocidal Murder Frenzy, all thanks to one insanely good general with a "Shock" value of 5. I presume his name was Murder von Killjoy.
Oh wait, he's French. Then Mudere le Killjoy. There we go.
It was about the time he cut off my troops heads and mailed me them that I quit playing.
All in all, this game is pretty crazy. There is plenty of fun (In both actual fun and Dwarf Fortress style "fun") to be had here, but I'll be damned if it doesn't make you work for it. I learned 3 major things from this game:
1. You cannot beat the Mongols. they will fuck you up.
2. You cannot beat anyone else in Russia, they will fuck you up.
3 France has an insane command structure. I'm fairly sure that Napoleon was born earlier in my game.
All in all, interesting experience.