Complex, developed and thoughtful game play has much to offer but tedious micromanagement causes huge let down.

User Rating: 5.5 | Europa Universalis III PC
By alex270694 | Review Date:
Europa Universalis III is a huge strategy game that takes place over an immense map that covers the whole world. As you pick your nation out of 300 choices and battle of 1700 provinces and many sea zones, you have to manage and control every single little tiny bit of your empire, republic of what ever you are. You control the economy, the advisers you have, your diplomacy, all your armies and fleets, the religion tolerance, research, development in provinces, colonisation, exploration and TONS more. Yes, even I can agree that this game has an incredible amount to offer, but it is simply to much for an average player. If you want to get serious with this game, you'll spend more than half your time with the time paused just so you can manage your provinces which really makes you feel like a control freak. However, like any games, there are good points about the game too.

Good Things:

Just simply the fact that you control everything is a great thing that really helps the player get involved with the game. My favorite is the colonisation, when you send out generals and commanders and explore the un-charted lands. The control of the government and its policies are also very interesting as you can move sliders that changes your government and how it is affected but if you move them to much, your people become unhappy and may revolt. Compared to other similar games like the Total War series, you control far more.

Bad Things:

The bad things about this game just pile up one after the other when you play this game. You'll spend hours of just clicking around trying to find buttons and sliders and people. Assigning leaders to armies can take ages to figure out, building buildings takes ages because you have to go through a long tedious process of technology research, which you need to fund. But once you spend to much you run out of money, and then your people revolt and so on. So what ever you do, bad things happen as a consequence. The thing that can be the most annoying thing are the battles. Recruiting armies takes a long time, and its expensive and once you start attacking, all you see are two guys poking each other with sticks and a moral bar going up and down. It.is.boring. Not only that, but sieges take an incredibly long time. Now I know that people might say that it is meant to be realistic and all, but is it really that fun when it is realistic? I mean, look at COD. Would it be fun if you died as soon as you were hit once by a handgun like in real life? NO! Lastly, the graphics are horrible, the campaign map is a turn of. Seems like there's to much focus on making the game as realistic as possible that the game makers have forgotten to try the game out before it was released.

If this game looks like fun, it is a first. But the problems just keep coming. The graphics are a turn of and the game play is not for an average player. If you like these sort of games, go for the Total War series instead, as they are far more rewarding. There, the game play is simplified and allows you to actually finish a campaign and enjoy it!

I hope this helps you players out there, and remember, this is just my opinion.

Cheers!

Other Helpful Reviews for Europa Universalis III

Load Comments (0)