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Review by Ian Morris

Europa Universalis III is more than a little tricky to review. Hardcore strategists and history fans will lap up the attention to detail, the old-school presentation, the incredible amount of depth, and the slow gameplay; however, fans of what we now consider to be RTS games (Command & Conquer and the like) may quickly be put off by those very same features. It's because of this that EU III seems to be aiming for an entirely different target market, so much so that it may as well come with a warning sticker on the box: "Do not play unless you're very enthusiastic about history." Accessible it certainly isn't, especially if you're coming to the game thinking it has any real relation to the likes of Rome: Total War.

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Putting you in the role of a nameless leader of a country of your choosing (you can play as any one from the known world at that time, which leaves plenty of unexplored continents for you to discover), EU III sets you the task of doing... well, whatever you want. An open-ended strategy game in the extreme, the choices you make really are entirely up to you; there's nothing in the way of a story to follow, and no objectives to complete. It's this level of freedom that can make Europa Universalis III quite daunting at times and also means that anyone who doesn't have the patience of a Greek philosopher will face an uphill battle getting involved.

Played from a top-down perspective, as if surveying a map, your land is divided into different provinces, with large red borders separating your nation from its neighbours. This is the only view you can have of the game - the entire game plays out like a glorified, real-time version of Risk. Just a lot, lot slower. Anything you attempt to do will take months to complete; things such as recruiting an army or moving units between provinces can take upwards of 70 days, so whilst it may sound impressive that the game spans over 300 years in history, you'll still find yourself getting little accomplished. This also means that the game requires some incredibly complex forward planning, as, if you ever happen to get invaded, and you don't have the necessary amount of troops ready, there's no way you can put together a counter attack in time. Although you can hire local mercenaries, these are, understandably, nowhere near as talented as properly trained soldiers, meaning you'd probably be better off spending your time and money waiting to recruit more soldiers, whilst praying that your province's keep doesn't fall before you manage to get anything done.


Despite an overly clunky interface and a disappointing lack of appropriate tutorials, you can't help but be impressed with the way EU III lets you adapt your nation to your liking.

Whilst you can speed up the game, choosing from one of around five different speed settings (depending on the speed of your computer), all this does is make it even easier to lose control of your nation, as problems will begin cropping up far too quickly, even if your armies are being built faster. This effectively forces you to play it one of the lower three speeds, where things take a very long time. It's this unforgiving double-edged sword that Europa Universalis wields that makes it appeal to grand strategy veterans, while at the same time making it incredibly inaccessible for anyone who's new to the genre.

Despite an overly clunky interface and a disappointing lack of appropriate tutorials, you can't help but be impressed with the way EU III lets you adapt your nation to your liking. You're able to change everything from your Government's level of investment in certain things, to choosing advisers to your leaders, or even setting ideas for your nation to follow. All this has to be done while trying to keep your citizens happy and thereby prevent them from rebelling, as well as maintaining your country's good name and reputation around the world. This can be a genuine challenge to accomplish, especially for a relative newcomer to the genre such as myself - keeping everyone happy is never easy, and you'll likely find yourself with a few rebellions that need squashing in the first few years of play. This is by far the most interesting and most enjoyable part of the game, and could well have made the game a must buy, if it weren't for the fact that the menu system seems to be constantly working against you. Simply put, there are far too many menu screens, each with too many buttons and nowhere near enough explanation. As you can imagine, this leads to a horrendously steep learning curve for any newcomers to the game. Finding the appropriate menu to do a certain thing takes forever, and with numerous sub-menus to navigate, and a disappointing lack of shortcuts, many will find themselves in a war of their own as they attempt to do the simplest of tasks.

... but everyone else will find a game that's hard to get into.... but everyone else will find a game that's hard to get into.

Combat is another area where Europa Universalis falls disappointingly short. For the sake of this example, let's presume we're playing as sleepy old England. As a country which begins the game at war with France, you're going to want to amass a decently sized army to defend yourself against any possible attack, as well as reinforce your province in Calais. However, as each of your provinces can only build one army at a time (taking at least 70 days a piece), you'll find yourself having an incredibly long wait before you get a chance to defend anything. To make matters worse, there's also every chance that whilst you're sitting around waiting for your units to be built, the French will march in with a 10,000 strong army and take Calais from right under your nose, before you've even had a chance to react. This is just one example of the incredibly tough situations that Europa Universalis III throws at the player, and newcomers are likely to feel completely overwhelmed.

If you eventually do find yourself in a brief spell of peace time, you may find yourself wanting to invade another country, to garner better taxes, and provide a second base for your armies. To get your troops to another you country, you must first load them onto a boat, before setting sail for enemy territory. However, for some strange reason, you can't load your armies onto a boat when the boat is docked at one of your ports - the boat must first set sail and position itself in the middle of the ocean before your troops can climb on-board. It's a bizarre design decision and is downright confusing for a game which prides itself on realism.

After you land your troops in enemy territory, presuming that you don't come across any enemies defending the province, you're then in for a long wait, as you just sit and watch a still image of the enemy province's keep, waiting until you see it catch fire or the walls collapse. At this point you can choose to assault the keep or wait for them to surrender due to starvation - it's up to you. Again, this can take weeks or months, just as it would in real life. It's just that reality doesn't always make for an enjoyable game. Unfortunately, combat with two armies feels just as slow and uninspired; when you and an enemy enter the same province, a battle between your two forces will automatically occur, and you then sit and watch as the numbers go down, and the enemy team trounce yours. You can't arrange your armies and you have no command over the battle at all, a feature which proves to be very limiting, and makes you feel far too detached from any battles which occur - the ability to change the formation of your soldiers, or even issue some sort of orders would have been nice, and made the game feel much more involved at the same time.

At the end of the day, if you're a relative newcomer to the grand strategy genre who's interested in sampling what the genre have to offer, this really isn't the game you'll want to get started with. The incredible scope, combined with the awkward menu system and lack of tutorials just serves to make this game completely inaccessible to the grand strategy novice. If you're a fan of EU II, you're sure to love this and will probably see many of the issues highlighted as problems for newcomers as reasons why you love the series. However, without anything there to hold your hand through the first few years, EU III is a game that will be completely inaccessible to the average gamer, and because of this it's hard to recommend.

Editor's comment: The review text has been altered slightly from the original which was published on 29.01.2007. These changes were made to more accurately represent the views of the reviewer.

Turn to page 2 for a second opinion on Europa Universalis III

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