Europa Universalis III Demo

[Jorian Drake]

Uh..... we know.

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was just correcting Meta:

 

I had the demo on fast most of the time (pausing only briefly) and it took over six hours to play 400 years (the length of the demo).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[metadigital]

That just makes it worse!

[Jorian Drake]

That just makes it worse!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

not really, the game shouldn't end in 1-2 hours, and never forget this game is also for MP, if you start an MP campaign it can take many months to finish

[metadigital]

YES really, because it means that the game cannot possibly be played in a single sitting, even if you limit the scope.

[alanschu]

Does the game have to end in a single sitting though?

[metadigital]

Of course not, but if it takes over six hours for 50 years at the fastest rate, then a game is going to take forever. 50 years is not enough time to do much of anything, except in the demo which allows for everything up to and including colonization, and is helped by a gimped AI.

 

It's just that if every game is a large investment, then it will put me off (and probably a lot of others, too).

 

The only solution would be to re-play a lot of saved games, I suppose.

[Jorian Drake]

Of course not, but if it takes over six hours for 50 years at the fastest rate, then a game is going to take forever. 50 years is not enough time to do much of anything, except in the demo which allows for everything up to and including colonization, and is helped by a gimped AI.

 

It's just that if every game is a large investment, then it will put me off (and probably a lot of others, too).

 

The only solution would be to re-play a lot of saved games, I suppose.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not true, don't forget you will have a lot of wars, colonising, diplomatic actions, industry and armament, shipbuilding, trade, exploring, building province enchantments.

 

You will not have time to get bored.

 

 

PS: you can start at any historical date, so you can just start later and play for rvrn 1 day if you want before time runs out.

[metadigital]

I'm not worried about being bored, I'm concerned about being dissuaded from starting a game because of the huge time investment it will take.

[Tigranes]

As I understand, when the game runs *properly*, in the fastest setting, 3-4 days pass in a second. Thus, it would take around two minutes a year. Thus it would be about 2 hours to play 50 years, barring player-initiated pauses and so forth.

 

My computer on demo only handles ~1 day per second, which is significantly slower, but apparently that's due to "lag"! I'll see when I get the real game tomorrow, but that does not sound very nice. EU does take up a lot of processing power though.

[Tigranes]

As I understand, when the game runs *properly*, in the fastest setting, 3-4 days pass in a second. Thus, it would take around two minutes a year. Thus it would be about 2 hours to play 50 years, barring player-initiated pauses and so forth.

 

My computer on demo only handles ~1 day per second, which is significantly slower, but apparently that's due to "lag"! I'll see when I get the real game tomorrow, but that does not sound very nice. EU does take up a lot of processing power though.

[Jorian Drake]

I'm not worried about being bored, I'm concerned about being dissuaded from starting a game because of the huge time investment it will take.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All of the games take time no? ^_^

 

 

As I understand, when the game runs *properly*, in the fastest setting, 3-4 days pass in a second. Thus, it would take around two minutes a year. Thus it would be about 2 hours to play 50 years, barring player-initiated pauses and so forth.

 

My computer on demo only handles ~1 day per second, which is significantly slower, but apparently that's due to "lag"! I'll see when I get the real game tomorrow, but that does not sound very nice. EU does take up a lot of processing power though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

demo has a really bad performance, the full game is a lot better and that has already a patch

[metadigital]

I'm not worried about being bored, I'm concerned about being dissuaded from starting a game because of the huge time investment it will take.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All of the games take time no? ^_^

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't be obtuse.

[Jorian Drake]

I'm not worried about being bored, I'm concerned about being dissuaded from starting a game because of the huge time investment it will take.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All of the games take time no? ^_^

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't be obtuse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't be so funny! :D

 

 

I never seen a person who considers to buy/play a game on the time taken for playing it. )

[Tigranes]

As I understand, when the game runs *properly*, in the fastest setting, 3-4 days pass in a second. Thus, it would take around two minutes a year. Thus it would be about 2 hours to play 50 years, barring player-initiated pauses and so forth.

 

My computer on demo only handles ~1 day per second, which is significantly slower, but apparently that's due to "lag"! I'll see when I get the real game tomorrow, but that does not sound very nice. EU does take up a lot of processing power though.

[alanschu]

Did you mean to type the same message three different times?

[Jorian Drake]

Did you mean to type the same message three different times?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

and that with a difference of 38 mins!

[alanschu]

That is certainly the unusual thing.

[Tigranes]

What the heck happened there?

 

Getting away from both random automatic repostings and silly bickerings, does anybody have the full game yet? Getting mine in about 24 hours, but I'm getting so impatient. Especially since my friend keeps grilling me with his demo disaster stories.

 

Apparently started with Munster (the one in Ireland) to try and unite it. Unfortunately he invaded Connaught before realising it was allied to England., which sent over a massive army. Him being him, he took about 4 loans (gurk) and raised an army. The problem was that while he eventually bought England offw ith ~50 ducats (bankruptcy time!) and annexed Connaught, his BB was such that England soon invaded hiim again.. with his ally, Portugal. So he has about 70 ships circling Ireland, and what with all the bankruptcy, state of war and BB he has massive rebellions going on. The rebel leader, who has 1,000 cavalry with him, promptly destroys his entire army suffering minuite losses, then proceeds to destroy the English and Portuguese troops, and then besiege Ulster or whichever provicne the English hold. After about twenty battles against superior numbers the said rebels are finally eradicated, but not before devastating the entire island and destroying the Anglo-Portuguese invasion army. Then finally, Portugal and England, who now both have provinces in Ireland, declare war on each other, each of them bringing their own allies. He went bankrupt a second time, had rebels besieging his only province, and watched Portuguese and the Venetians fighting the English with their Protestant Lithuanians fighting over Connaught.

 

Then the demo crashed.

[Checkpoint]

I hope EU3 doesn't have the same issue EU2 had, being that the AI liked to go after provinces according to province numbers. Ireland's provinces were among the first, so the Green Isle often ended up owned by a bunch of different super-powers...

[Rosbjerg]

I hope EU3 doesn't have the same issue EU2 had, being that the AI liked to go after provinces according to province numbers. Ireland's provinces were among the first, so the Green Isle often ended up owned by a bunch of different super-powers...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In a particular game I have; The Papal States, Genoa, Scotland and England respectively own Ireland..

I thought it was way too messy so I (as France) decided to conquer everything.. since being colourblind it's pretty annoying for me when the map is composed of a myriad of different colours... I personally think that's the main reason wars are fought.. people hate all those colours on the map..

[metadigital]

What the heck happened there?

 

Getting away from both random automatic repostings and silly bickerings, does anybody have the full game yet? Getting mine in about 24 hours, but I'm getting so impatient. Especially since my friend keeps grilling me with his demo disaster stories.

 

Apparently started with Munster (the one in Ireland) to try and unite it. Unfortunately he invaded Connaught before realising it was allied to England., which sent over a massive army. Him being him, he took about 4 loans (gurk) and raised an army. The problem was that while he eventually bought England offw ith ~50 ducats (bankruptcy time!) and annexed Connaught, his BB was such that England soon invaded hiim again.. with his ally, Portugal. So he has about 70 ships circling Ireland, and what with all the bankruptcy, state of war and BB he has massive rebellions going on. The rebel leader, who has 1,000 cavalry with him, promptly destroys his entire army suffering minuite losses, then proceeds to destroy the English and Portuguese troops, and then besiege Ulster or whichever provicne the English hold. After about twenty battles against superior numbers the said rebels are finally eradicated, but not before devastating the entire island and destroying the Anglo-Portuguese invasion army. Then finally, Portugal and England, who now both have provinces in Ireland, declare war on each other, each of them bringing their own allies. He went bankrupt a second time, had rebels besieging his only province, and watched Portuguese and the Venetians fighting the English with their Protestant Lithuanians fighting over Connaught.

 

Then the demo crashed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Apart from the crash, that sounds kewl!

[Loonie]

I downloaded and installed the demo but it just crashes everytime i try and run the program.

 

Think I'll just stick to Risk 2.

[metadigital]

It's a test to see if you are intelligent enough to play the game.

 

Seriously, you should check out their forum for specific help, if we can't help with general issues. (You are the first person to say they can't run the game.)

[Tigranes]

So, uh, wow. Of all things, the forum maintenance killed my ginormous AAR-ish post.

 

Started off a full game with Milan, Normal difficulty, Sept 1973 (just after it annexes the Genoans). Milan's not a particularly difficult faction, and after sealing off early alliances with Savoy and Austria I'm sitting there building my tech & army up. I am very fond of selecting the inflation idea for my first at the moment - losing the manpower one doesn't hurt after a while and I just love having 0 inflation all game. It's just my obsessive thing. Took me a while to regain the stab, but Milan looks stronger than most of its neighbours after a few years.

 

In 1478 Massimilio I takes the throne with pretty good stats, and I feel with 6,000 men it's time for some expansion. I had sprayed some warnings around before and I had a nice Casus Belli on Venice for going rampaging with Modena, who afterwards became my ally. Venice has no allies, curiously; and it's the easiest thing in the world to DoW and have Savoy, Austria, Modena and myself pouring troops into their lands. Resistance is quickly crushed, and Brescia becomes Milanese.

 

That turned out to be just the start of a magnificent reign for Massimilio I. Ever the honourable man, he refused to declare unprovoked war, and expanded his realm only to safeguard his own interests. Surely he was entitled to take Verona, and force Venice to free Dalmatia and Ragusa, if they were so callous as to invade his ally Modena. And surely Tuscany, who helped Venice work its mischief, deserved to be vassalised. And if the Pope should see fit to take advantage of his neighbours' war exhaustion and conquer Mantua and Firuli? Why, justice is right here at the point of my sword.

 

Massimilio I reigned from 1478 to 1506, incredibly, and in that time I had managed to conquer Brescia, Verona, Ferrara, Romagna, and vassilise Tuscany. Modena my 'ally' was reduced to a pitiful one-state, the Papacy's strength broken, and I was sitting there pretty much unchallenged and suddenly with a lot more income (workshops in all of them, God bless the AI). I was even the Holy Roman Emperor. But just when life seemed good, Massimilio saw fit to get up on the wrong side of the bed and die of concussion. The regency council took over and I lost my HRE emperorship, and whats more, I was forced into junior partnership in a Personal Union with Modena!

 

 

The next ten years or so meant my hands were completely tied, and I just sat there consolidating my forces and bribing nearby nations. Austria seemed to be the Lucky Nation in my game, because they took this opportunity to expand like crazy. They couldn't do much on the Italian end, but expanded in every other direction, decimating Bohemia, Hungary, most of central Germany and even touching the Rhine near the northern edge of the Alps. All those unprovoked wars, of course, labelled them "dishonourable scum", but nobody seemed to have enough guts to challenge them. And I certainly couldn't, with stupid Modena curtailing my sovereignty.

 

Relief finally came in 1521 when Massimilo II ascended the throne. Not as able as his father, but competent. His forced annexation of Venezia earned him some bad rep, but he learnt his lesson and peacefully diplo-annexed Tuscany, then with bribery placated the worried Europeans. Then he mobilised.

 

Being a Holy Roman Emperor (again) has its perks; one of them is having 30,000 manpower and 65 supportable land units limit. As patience allowed I raised some thirty thousand men (the first of the gun shooters), then with Savoy as my only (and still faithful) ally took on Austria, the largest kingdom in Europe save the Ottoman.

 

The war continued from 1524 to 1540. Non-stop. It was one hell of a war. I made my ruler general, but with low army tradition my other generals were piss poor. I had better tactical movement (of course) and managed to blitz through the surprised Austrian front, simultaneously besieging about eight provinces at once. The problem came when one of his generals, something of a military legend, smashed through all that with 10,000 men and ransacked Brescia and Lombardia. I would never be able to defeat that army, though God knows I tried, but the time used up in those sieges meant I could inflict far more damage on the Austrian Empire.

 

 

My warscore was 99% by that point. Massimilio II had died half-way, leaving Massimilio III to inherit the throne. I was finally able to solidify my grip on those conquered nations (God bless HRE emperorship), and though the AI in its infinite wisdom refused EVERY peace deal I made, it offered me Linz, Trent, Firuli and Ragusa by himself, and I was happy to accept. Linz is kinda in the middle of nowhere though, but Sell Province doesn't seem to work.

 

The war might have gone on even longer but for the fact that the Papacy backstabbed me, and I had to go back and vassalise him. The Austrian war also let me vassalise Modena, so I'll be able to have a nice block of Northern Italy to myself after that. The Papacy is really crazy - as soon as I vassalised it it went off and attacked *France*, and now it's getting its butt handed to him again.

 

Having lots of fun with the game, although I am disappointed by superfast colonising (Castille has doen nothing in Europe but has about 50 provinces overseas, same with England and France). I've always thought the EU colonising model was bulky and time-consuming and I'm not going to bother now, I think. Just concentrating on creating Italy and staying HRE.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Europa Universalis III looks like a good game. I read the review of it in PC Gamer magazine, it looks like it would be worth getting. Looks similar to the PC version of Risk.