The mechanics are an improvement over EU2 but something feels a miss!
The game is complicated compared to well, any of your standard mass market games, you can pick virtually any country that existed on the planet during the games time frame 1453 to 1789, although emphasis is on the European factions mainly, what I do like about EU III is that you can now pick any nation/state to go as at any date at all, right down to the day itself.
And EUIII is off course sporting a new graphics engine, I was dubious about the 3D at first from the still screenshots, it just didn’t look good but seeing the graphics whilst playing they are quite acceptable.
There is also a new interface which will probably put of a few new comers as they might feel its unintuitive and the game itself overwhelming, for old timers of the EU/Vicky/HoI series it'll seem strange and take a little getting use to but is fine after a while.
You need to manage your nation very carefully, there’s taxation, treasury +investment in technology, manpower, army, navy, diplomacy, domestic policies, stability, merchants, religion, colonisation, culture and now with EUIII there’s also espionage, new Units, advisors, the 'lucky nation bonus' a 'core' system and a very good 'national idea' system.
The older elements are largely the same as EU2, there’s a wealth of diplomatic options choose from, merchants have same role except you cant auto send now (which is a surprisingly irritating omission!) religion is similar, there'll be outbreaks of violence if your religious tolerance for a specific province's religion is too low, or you can convert them so you can further increase your tax, culture again has a similar effect on taxation, colonisation seems to occur much more quickly than in EU2 which is good and bad, sometimes the player might come to the party too late and find very little left to even attempt to colonise (I personally haven’t had this problem yet).
Manpower is extremely important, different provinces will provide different amounts of manpower, the more is better obviously, it affects how many troops you can create and how many able body men there are for reinforcements, it is crucial to maintain a high manpower level (this can really only be done by having a certain national idea! and expanding) if you get too low you wont be able to reinforce or create new troops and may even have to rely on poor expensive mercenaries.
Domestic policies are basically sliders dictating your countries outlook, are the peasants free subjects or serfs? maybe somewhere in between? Do you want a free market or a mercantile one? Somewhere in between again etc every now and again depending on your government type (monarch, feudal, republic etc etc) you can change one slider one space for 1 stability loss so eventually you can mould your country to what you think is best, each one has its ups and downs, if you focus on a mercantile system you'll get more merchants but they'll be poorer competitors, and so on for all the options.
The naval and land army fights are abstracted like before, you can order them to move and if they walk /sail onto a province with an enemy army/fleet they'll slog it out, some will get killed/sunk and one or the other will retreat when their morale gets too low, ships can blockade ports getting you money and harming the enemies economy, land armies will besiege a fort, eventually the fort will fall and you will occupy the province affecting your war score.
Stability affects how efficient your provinces are at production and how well they are taxed for your benefit, a low stability means this efficiency is eroded and rebels might appear more frequently, so a high stability of the maximum 3 is usually what you'll want to keep.
The treasury and investment (technology) are one in the same, as you 'mint' more coins for your treasury you diminish your investment capacity, and also increase your inflation which means everything gets a little more expensive, a little inflation is ok, but can soon become a huge problem crippling your nation maybe even permanently.
So to get a good investment you'll want to keep your 'minting' as low as possible even perhaps in the minus to work inflation down and maximise investment.
There are multiple sliders for investment to choose from, some are for 'land' which will affect your armies ability to fight and what units you can get, naval which is same deal but for your navy obviously.
Trade affects merchants ability to compete in centres of trade and maybe a building you can create in your provinces and eventually the ability to attain a monopoly in a centre of trade to further increase income, production is similar except its a slight bonus of usually 2% to all provinces production rate (affects income) and eventually another building will be unlocked for you to build.
Stability is lost for declaring war - a huge stability hit for declaring war on nations which have good relations, same religion, no 'casus beli' (cause for war really) or even a huge -5 hit for breaking a truce, so by investing in this you will eventually regain stability which is needed for a happy kingdom.
Government investment, now heres where things get even more interesting with EUIII , now and again by investing in government you'll be given the ability to choose a 'National Idea' from a selection of 30 divided into different categories, naval, land army, exploration, state and culture, all are useful in their own way, and you will only likely be able to get a handful of these national ideals (max of 10) so each nation will be slightly unique with their own strengths and weaknesses, for example if you choose the 'land' option to have national conscription you'll have a significant boost to your manpower (how many troops you can create and reinforce) level and your ability to fight in a long term war is raised but you may regret not focusing on colonisation which can reap HUGE rewards financially by choosing the 'quest for the new world' national idea early on - this is needed to explore new lands and thus colonise. Off course this is only a brief outline of the National Idea element but its very very good one of my favourite parts of EU3.
The 'core' system I mentioned earlier basically means when you annex a province or colonise a unoccupied one, you cant actually recruit from it straight away, you have to wait at least 20 years for it to be truly considered a part of your empire to recruit from, this is because the rival you took it off might also considers that province its 'core' as well and may even try to take it back.
The espionage element to EUIII is a very good idea but not particularly well executed, before the patch I was getting spammed by AI spies inciting natives, you have a 'spy' counter much like merchants etc (only a limited amount replenished a year depending on domestic policies)
and you click on a rival and can choose to send one and have a list of options, the most useful I found to be fabricating claims to provinces given a cause for war.
It should also be mentioned that Advisors can be recruited - a max of 3 and they offer different bonuses but the better ones require a higher salary, they'll offer bonuses perhaps in a specific branch of investment for example land tech, production tech etc, or they might increase the success rate of conversions, maybe even colonisation.
The way the new units are handled is another favourite element for EUIII, as your land or naval tech increases you can be given options on units to recruit dependant on culture (if you have a vast multi cultural empire you can have a huge amount of units to recruit from) for example if im Britain I can eventually get redcoats, hussars and so on, its a very good way of reflecting a armies development and gives more customisation to the player, it also favours the eastern tech group such as the Ottomans in the early days of EUiii but eventually the Latin tech group as was true to history.
Finally the lucky nation bonus, I find this to be a mix bag, its intent is that several nations most near the player will be given huge bonuses (lucky) so they can quickly overcome nearby opposition and really give a challenge to the player, however the problem arises that alot of the time the lucky nations tend to similar ones each time- Burgundy, Austria, Castile, Ming.
EUIII expansion is slow going, deliberately so, you cant just treat EUIII like any other strategy game and build up a huge army and expect your finances to be ok and then declare war on a neighbour and wander why there’s suddenly 3 nations at war with you and your stability is minus 3, in EUiii you have to think (this aint Rome or MTW2 boys!) you'll want to get a casus beli on your opponent, check who they are allied with, then build up a sufficient force (not too big otherwise your economy will suffer) and attack, but it has to be methodical, rarely in EUIII can you annex a country, instead you need to battered a rival sufficiently to get favourable peace terms maybe the odd province here and there, but in Europe you need a high war score to do this.
Which leads me onto a problem I have with EUIII, the borders of Europe changed alot, but I find too often I have to occupy ever single province of a European enemy and have them constantly refuse demands which are quite generous (5 provinces max) off course its based on war score im told but it doesn’t feel particular fun to spend 5 years annihilating an enemy bringing the country to near ruin to not get anything! Infact I did a test, I occupied 14 provinces of Burgundy 99% war score and couldn’t only get 2 provinces - and worse if your aiming to tame a 'lucky' nation from getting to big and rampantly expanding (which I often find its burgundy or Austria controlling all of Europe and most of Russia) this simply isn’t going to work, they'll annihilate someone else in short time to get double the provinces they lost.
Off course whilst I may find this a fault there are others who would welcome this challenge, but I felt it bears mentioning.
Another problem I felt was that often the world plays the same each time, burgundy and Austria become super powerful, maybe even the ottomans and Ming , Novogrod and Muscovy will get whooped by Kazan, Japan by Ming, Egyptians run riot in eastern Africa and Saudi peninsula etc etc so after a few games EUIII looses its replay value as everything feels samey, this is my main gripe with the game its hard to keep wanting to play through the game (and it lasts a LONG time).
Also the music although it is enjoyable is severely limited, unlike previous paradox games you can no longer edit the soundtrack and add your own songs!!!! Another foul omission, it does affect the enjoyment of the game because the soundtrack is limited so you'll hear the same tracks over and over again and it’s only a matter of time before they grate on your nerves.
And I also notice a sound looping constantly, this is when I watch a siege and order an assault if I don’t click of the assault the sound keeps playing, pretty annoying!
I feel it also should be mentioned that EUIII is aimed at a mature more patient kind of gamer, yes its a grand epic immersive (whatever buzz word you want) real-time strategy game but that doesn’t mean its another Rome total war, the battles are abstracted, emphasis is placed on kingdom management, it can be overwhelming at times and you need to be patient you cant go of on a rampage expanding your kingdom because you have a reputation to consider - the 'bad boy' rating, every time you annex a province you accrue more badboy points which take months to drop in number, and too much bad boy means you'll get ganged up on by many nations.
All in all, I feel EUIII has better game play elements, but a inferior soundtrack (its not authentic music from the era(s) rather it is new so to speak and is as I said, limited and uncustomisable), graphically its a little better than the previous EU games (but I still don’t think Id like to see the 3D engine used in a future Vicky or Hearts of Iron game) but the longevity feels hampered by the 'samey' feel I get from playing the game.
Now this review has tried to touch upon most aspects of EUIII but there’s plenty of things Ive probably forgotten to mention (or go in much detail ) but I hope it gives a good idea at how complex and fun this game can be, but the lifespan of the game feels abit weak, still better than most games out there and worth checking out if you are interested in the Europa Universalis series or want a substantial strategy game for a change.
In brief:
PROS:
-new interface doesnt take up much room , easy to use province finder
-New units = more customisation which works well in EU3
-national idea system
-expanded diplomacy with priestige
-peace negotiations has been improved-option wise there are more than before
-spies have been introduced although feel a little underdeveloped
-advisors have been added
Neutal:
-Graphics
-Soundtrack whats there is good just not as good as EU2
Cons:
-Too few historical events! this would have added more spice and variety to the gameplay instead it feels:
-Too samey critically affects replay value!
-lucky bonus nations is a miss, unfortuantely most nations that are lucky in one game, are lucky in a nother game too.
-Auto send merchants - an ommision
-customisable soundtrack - omission
-Extremely Stubborn AI at the negotiating table