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[reconquista on!]Let's Play: Europa Universalis 3

Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
edited January 2009 in Games and Technology
Europa Universalis 3 is a Real Time Strategy game that seems like a combination of Civilization 4 and the strategic view of Rome Total War. The game period was originally from 1453 to 1780. With the second expansion, Napoleons Ambition, the gameplay went up to 1820, and with the third expansion, In Nomine, the gameplay went from 1399 to 1820. Besides this, In Nomine created a mission and national decision system, which meant that different countries now can have different abilities, like Russia getting higher maximum war exhaustion before people start revolting, or Prussia and Sweden having more diciplined soldiers than other countries.


I have recently come across a full game mod known as Magna Mundi which makes the game far more difficult. Things like converting cities to your religion take much longer, and revolts that come out of things like that are much stronger and harder to deal with, and besides this come out more frequently.

Combine this with an intense amount of boredom, and hell, why not? Let's play this bastard.

Generally, the only really interesting areas to play in are Europe. However, Magna Mundi adds Japan as an interesting region to play as, mostly because they rather realistically portray the warring states period.

So here are screens of the places where I, as a player of moderate skill, could play in and not get my shit rocked--

Western Europe
LPWesternEuro1.jpg

The obvious big players in Western Europe are France (and the many vassals she has), Spain, and Portugal. The rather not obvious one is Burgundy, which, before they were tweaked, had a habit of becoming Austria's rival in Germany and being France's rival for massive power status. Now that Burgundy is weaker, France generally becomes the superpower game, to the degree that they have the nickname "big blue blob". France is nearly always a late game rival for anyone in proximity to them.

South Eastern Europe
LPS-EEuro1.jpg
The powers of South-Eastern Europe are always Austria (which hasn't unified yet), Hungary (early on), and the Ottoman empire. Italy, depending on the players actions, gets either stomped on by France, or Venice nearly unifies the country then gets stomped by France, or the player unifies Italy and fights France. The Holy Roman Empire, comprised of a shit ton of small ass countries, gives massive powers to whomever they vote as their Emperor (huge amounts of stability and manpower, far higher maximum for how large your army can be, etc).

Eastern Europe
LPEasternEuro1.jpg
Eastern Europe is the most variable of all of the regions, because there are so many possible powers in the area. Lithuania, similarly to Burgundy, can become really powerful if it starts beating down the Russian states before they unify into Russia. It's also an odd region because at the start of the game, both Novgorod (a trading country) and Muscovy (a military-based country) have equal chance at taking the other city-states shit first and unifying into Russia.

Northern Europe
LPNEuro1.jpg

There's Northern Europe, with England, just waiting to become Great Britain, and Sweden (with Finland) as the powers of the area. Sweden has a bunch of missions which try to move it towards taking over Lithuania's stuff, so depending on whether Lithuania is powerful or not, it might become kinda meh-ish strong or be a totally boring area.


Japan
LPJapan1.jpg

Holy shit, look at that. That's like a million fucking countries. How the fuck are you supposed to unite Japan from the starting point of a 1-providence minor?

Ethan Smith on
«1345

Posts

  • FoodFood Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Is it possible to do crazy stuff in this game like unifying Japan early and then colonizing America or China or something? If so, I vote for Japan. If not, I vote for Castile.

    Food on
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Ooo decisions decisions. Japan might be exciting with all the fighting, but could also be boring while trying to stabilize the economy. But if it could be unified and can colonize America, that would be neat to see.

    If not that I also vote for Castile.

    rayofash on
  • VicVic Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    NOOO WHAT ARE YOU DOING

    I was free of this game! Now I will have to try to unify america or india again and fail utterly because you mentioned this.

    I vote for Sweden because I live there.

    Vic on
  • P10P10 An Idiot With Low IQ Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    What exactly does 'moderate' skill mean? Because if you're good enough, the weaker nations (Sweden, Brandenburg, Poland, etc) of the area are pretty fun to play as.

    P10 on
    Shameful pursuits and utterly stupid opinions
  • FerrusFerrus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Food wrote: »
    Is it possible to do crazy stuff in this game like unifying Japan early and then colonizing America or China or something? If so, I vote for Japan. If not, I vote for Castile.

    With the Magna Mundi Mod such feats are very hard to achieve (but still possible).

    I'm voting for either England or Denmark.
    England is one of the few countries actually able to colonize the Americas in Magna Mundi and Denmark... Well, they're a kind of vikings so thats cool.

    I've played the vanilla game with In Nomine but never really gotten anywhere. The one decent game I had was with Novgorod but I got caught up in a war with the Golden Horde which pretty much was unwinable.

    Don't underestimate EU, especially with Magna Mundi!

    Ferrus on
    I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
    My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
    And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Food wrote: »
    Is it possible to do crazy stuff in this game like unifying Japan early and then colonizing America or China or something? If so, I vote for Japan. If not, I vote for Castile.

    Japan techs up slower than the Latin states, but if I were to try to consolidate my area then go almost entirely into Naval tech, I could possibly get into the Eastern seaboard and the Inca's before Spain/Portugal.

    mayyybeeee.

    By moderate skill, I mean I've played Sweden, Brandenburg, and I could prolly play any major power, but I'm not ridiculously good, and I've played few games without cheating (the 2 recent ones were Sweden going into Scandanavia and colonizing N. America and the Ottoman Empire)

    Ethan Smith on
  • LamoidLamoid Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Things like converting cities to your religion take much longer

    Dear God. They found a way to make it even longer?

    Lamoid on
    Laymoid.gif
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Lamoid wrote: »
    Things like converting cities to your religion take much longer

    Dear God. They found a way to make it even longer?

    When I tried to convert Constantinople as the Ottomans, it said "+1.9% a year"

    If that means what I think it means, then...good god.

    Ethan Smith on
  • P10P10 An Idiot With Low IQ Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    By moderate skill, I mean I've played Sweden, Brandenburg, and I could prolly play any major power, but I'm not ridiculously good, and I've played few games without cheating (the 2 recent ones were Sweden going into Scandanavia and colonizing N. America and the Ottoman Empire)
    I don't know how much Magna Mundi or the expansions change anything, but if you take Scandanavia as Sweden and colonize, well.....
    The light-blue is my Swedish empire, from my current game. I'm bringing in like, 650 ducats as yearly, and I think 200 as monthly. Absolutely sick.
    eu3swede1vy5.jpg
    eu3swede2cx9.jpg
    eu3swede3th5.jpg

    P10 on
    Shameful pursuits and utterly stupid opinions
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I played Swe->Sca with IN and didn't take in as much of Lithuania, but instead pretty much all of North America is colonized by me. I get like 300 a month from tarrifs, it's retarded.

    Ethan Smith on
  • P10P10 An Idiot With Low IQ Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Well, keep in mind if you do too well, we'll just demand that you conquer the whole world and settle for nothing less.

    P10 on
    Shameful pursuits and utterly stupid opinions
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I'm ready for that, sir.

    Right now I'm reading through the manual for MM, and I have various dates and parties. So we'll start the game sometime around the New Year, which gives you guys that much time to decide a nation. Right now, the vote is

    9 for Japan
    7 for Castille
    1 for Sweden
    1 for England
    1 for Denmark
    1 for Huron
    1 for Scotland
    1 for Poland

    Ethan Smith on
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I vote for Castille.

    Couscous on
  • DisruptorX2DisruptorX2 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Spain is my homeboy in Medieval II, I vote Castille.

    DisruptorX2 on
    1208768734831.jpg
  • Darth_MogsDarth_Mogs Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I have to shamelessly throw in my hat for Japan.

    Samurai Warriors and Nobunaga's Ambition games (and, well, history) just really make me enjoy the Warring States period.

    I'm glad one of these is going on. One of my friends had talked about Europa Universalis 2 and 3 a few times lately, and I saw it in Best Buy and almost bought it, but had no idea if my computer could run it. I'm pretty sure it can now, so if this looks cool, I'll be picking it up for myself.

    Darth_Mogs on
    Kupowered - It's my Blog!
  • piLpiL Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Edit: Nevermind what I said. Do Castille.

    piL on
  • DisruptorX2DisruptorX2 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Darth_Mogs wrote: »
    I have to shamelessly throw in my hat for Japan.

    Samurai Warriors and Nobunaga's Ambition games (and, well, history) just really make me enjoy the Warring States period.
    .

    Pfft, the Spanish make the Samurai look like friendly dudes. When they aren't torturing heretics and heathens to death, they are massacring helpless natives and stealing their gold. Fuck yeah.

    DisruptorX2 on
    1208768734831.jpg
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Darth_Mogs wrote: »
    I have to shamelessly throw in my hat for Japan.

    Samurai Warriors and Nobunaga's Ambition games (and, well, history) just really make me enjoy the Warring States period.
    .

    Pfft, the Spanish make the Samurai look like friendly dudes. When they aren't torturing heretics and heathens to death, they are massacring helpless natives and stealing their gold. Fuck yeah.

    There are always the good old Reconquista thought I think that was pretty much over by 1399.

    Couscous on
  • DisruptorX2DisruptorX2 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Couscous wrote: »
    Darth_Mogs wrote: »
    I have to shamelessly throw in my hat for Japan.

    Samurai Warriors and Nobunaga's Ambition games (and, well, history) just really make me enjoy the Warring States period.
    .

    Pfft, the Spanish make the Samurai look like friendly dudes. When they aren't torturing heretics and heathens to death, they are massacring helpless natives and stealing their gold. Fuck yeah.

    There are always the good old Reconquista thought I think that was pretty much over by 1399.

    1492 is the official end, I believe.

    DisruptorX2 on
    1208768734831.jpg
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Couscous wrote: »
    Darth_Mogs wrote: »
    I have to shamelessly throw in my hat for Japan.

    Samurai Warriors and Nobunaga's Ambition games (and, well, history) just really make me enjoy the Warring States period.
    .

    Pfft, the Spanish make the Samurai look like friendly dudes. When they aren't torturing heretics and heathens to death, they are massacring helpless natives and stealing their gold. Fuck yeah.

    There are always the good old Reconquista thought I think that was pretty much over by 1399.

    I'm going to start on 1453, the best start date for Magna Mundi, and even then, there's the 3-providence Grenada.

    Ethan Smith on
  • grrarggrrarg Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Is there any way to get this digitally, other than Gamersgate? They don't offer the Complete bundle, and buying them separately there costs twice as much as a physical copy.

    grrarg on
  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I throw my hat down for Japan.

    admanb on
  • tofutofu Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I've always wanted to play this game but it looks so goddamn intimidating.

    tofu on
  • krylon666krylon666 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    all of the paradox grand strategy games seem super hard (and a couple are) but i definitely recommend just picking up one. go with whichever covers the time period that interests you both. i grabbed them all after playing Crusader Kings.

    as far as the Lets Play goes, I gotta add my love for Japan as well.

    krylon666 on
  • GoslingGosling Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, Probably Watertown, WIRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Having never played, and seeing that we have a full world map to play with here, and not having any idea of the difficulty of same... I vote for whatever region Wisconsin is in. Out of sheer shameless selfishness and also because I won't have to do it.

    Gosling on
    I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Gosling wrote: »
    Having never played, and seeing that we have a full world map to play with here, and not having any idea of the difficulty of same... I vote for whatever region Wisconsin is in. Out of sheer shameless selfishness and also because I won't have to do it.

    There's the Huron and the Iriquoi.

    Ethan Smith on
  • GoslingGosling Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, Probably Watertown, WIRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Gosling wrote: »
    Having never played, and seeing that we have a full world map to play with here, and not having any idea of the difficulty of same... I vote for whatever region Wisconsin is in. Out of sheer shameless selfishness and also because I won't have to do it.

    There's the Huron and the Iriquoi.
    We'll call me Milwaukee. Which one's in Milwaukee?

    Gosling on
    I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
  • Ethan SmithEthan Smith Origin name: Beart4to Arlington, VARegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Gosling wrote: »
    Gosling wrote: »
    Having never played, and seeing that we have a full world map to play with here, and not having any idea of the difficulty of same... I vote for whatever region Wisconsin is in. Out of sheer shameless selfishness and also because I won't have to do it.

    There's the Huron and the Iriquoi.
    We'll call me Milwaukee. Which one's in Milwaukee?

    Huron is closest, they have that horn thing that Ontario has.

    Ethan Smith on
  • GoslingGosling Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, Probably Watertown, WIRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Huron it is then.

    Gosling on
    I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Besides, no one suspects the Spanish in inquisition.

    rayofash on
  • taco144taco144 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    This game D:

    This game and Hearts of Iron 2 with the world in flames mod and some graphics packs have taken countless hours of my life.

    taco144 on
  • AntinumericAntinumeric Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    It must be japan! then if possible conquer canada!

    Antinumeric on
    In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
  • SilvioSilvio Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Going to cast my vote towards Japan as well. Uniting it all should be interesting.

    Silvio on
  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I'm gonna say Seville also, since I never figured out how to play this game :P

    a5ehren on
  • Mr. PokeylopeMr. Pokeylope Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Just wanted to say that I just got the EU3 complete for $10 at Bestbuy and it's $10 on the website right now too. Personally I think the game is well worth full price but at $10 if you like strategy games how can you go wrong?

    As a warning Bestbuy clearance prices are ymmv.

    Mr. Pokeylope on
  • grrarggrrarg Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Ordered! Thanks for the heads up. The wargame thread and this upcoming LP got me hankering for a new strategy game.

    grrarg on
  • VicVic Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I am playing an 1399 game as Vijayanagar, and I have kind of run into a brick wall. While I have conquered a huge chunk of India I have let my inflation run amok (I only recently learned how inflation worked, and suffice to say I agree with everyone who thinks it is retarded) and I am behind on pretty much all techs.

    It seems odd to me that the game punishes players so hard for having many provinces by scaling the cost of technology with your country size. Regardless, I am now putting all of my effort into getting my economy on its feet, pay back my loans and try to push back the mounting inflation. Of course, even with optimistic calculations reducing my 20% inflation will take at least 50 years during which I can only support just enough soldiers to beat down the constant rebellions. Such is the cost of war.

    Vic on
  • elkataselkatas Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Hmh, where were you guys when I tried to run Let's Play for this about six months ago? :P

    ETHAN: I would recommend you to update your game to In Nomine. Much better AI, and lots of stuff that mods can't even replicate like automatized trading. Vanilla EU3 is piss poor easy even with mods.

    elkatas on
    Hypnotically inclined.
  • VicVic Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    It must have passed under my radar.

    And crap, I am so terrible at this. My income has risen to 50 denars a year after I acquired a sixth CoT, but that is still nowhere near enough to achieve anything at all.

    I guess that either the computer players have an unfair advantage, or I just do not get economy in this game.

    A comparison between me and Persia, one of my rivals.

    Vijayanagar:
    Provinces: 44
    Inflation: 21%, Income: 50.1, TE: 31%, PE: 26&
    Soldiers: 10k mounted, 2k foot
    Tech levels: 4 3 4 3 4

    Persia:
    Provinces: 12
    Inflation: 5%, Income: 22,3, TE: 23%, PE: 29%
    Soldiers: 12k mounted, 12k foot
    Tech levels: 7 7 6 6 5


    So all right, I have fucked myself on the inflation and I have been borrowing money. I have also been doing a lot of fighting which has hampered my teching. However, I can not see how it is possible for me to have been handling my economy so poorly that I have only gained three tech levels while he has gained sixteen.

    Edit: Read up even more in Inflation, and I guess I still have some learning to do.

    Vic on
  • elkataselkatas Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Vic wrote: »
    Edit: Read up even more in Inflation, and I guess I still have some learning to do.

    Yeah, inflation is bad and if it grows enough, you are truly fucked, as only real way to control it (tax accessor) comes at Goverment level 32. But after you have built tax accessor to your each province, inflation is pretty much non-issue.

    elkatas on
    Hypnotically inclined.
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