Europa Universalis II

[Hamlet]

Does anyone have this?

I'm playing as France at the moment, but I never seem to get any explorers or anything - I think it seems to be based on what country you play as - Portugal and Spain seem to have colonised quite a few places, yet I have yet to get one explorer/conquistador as of yet.

Any suggestions, anyone?

It's a good game, though.

 

[Adamski]

I'd love to get it - but it hasn't been released in New Zealand. They never released the 1st version here either. Strange ....

 

[Richard III]

I've been considering buying it. A review might persuade me

 

[Hamlet]

Originally posted by Richard III
I've been considering buying it. A review might persuade me

I'll provide one later.

Anyway, I restarted my game, as it was essentially my first attempt.

I got into a horrible war with Portugal after annexing Spain, which generally seemed to involve me doing a world tour trying to capture every flee-bitten colony Portugal had going. They were, needless to say, spread out from South America to Indonesia. I had, by this time of course, took everything Portugal had in Europe through repeated wars, and they were left with a tiny bit of territory outside Lisbon. All the colony hopping business seemed rather unfair when I had them completely under my thumb back home.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

I have been considering getting the game but I would like a little info before spending my well earned money

 

[Flatlander Fox]

I had the first game, and liked it, except for the fact that it was amazingly hard, and a little tedious.

I am notoriously tight with money, so I doubt if I'll buy this game if it is not improved from the first version.

 

[Hamlet]

From the main title screen, you go to pick your start: You can either begin 'The Grand Campaign', which starts in 1419 and goes through to the early 19th century, or pick one of the scenarios.

Starting TGC will take you right to an historical position of whatever country you pick in 1419. You can pick any of literally hundreds, from the Duchy of Athens, France, England, Scotland, The Ottoman Empire, to The German or Indian city states, to The Aztec Empire or The Incas. Essentially, anybody who was either a political somebody or nobody in 1419 is here.

So, you pick whatever country (or piddly little backwater city state) you wish, and are brought to the map view. Here, you are shown your provinces via an olde-world style map. Your provinces are essentially small or large portions of land that you own. Clicking on them will allow you to build up the chief city of the province, building manufactories, etc. It is from here that you also build your troops, ships etc.

You have control over everything from domestic religious, financial and infrastructural elements to foreign policy, which involves alliance making, intrique and all the rest.

It is really a massive game. It also pretty much puls it off. The RTS works well, and doesn't hinder the game terribly - one thing I ddi find annoying was 400 pop up boxes informing me of events sprining up att he same time, although there is thankfully a 'pause' feature, during which you can mess about.

The inclusion of historical 'events' is rather nice. For instance, having conquered Byzantium with The Ottomans, you get the decision to relocate the capital to Constantinople. What you decide from these has in-game effects, and it's all rather jolly.

Religion also plays a major part in the game - conversions of provinces, The reformation, social upheval, religious wars, they're all here. A lot of alliances and diplomatic inteactions, and their success/limitations are based on a country's religion.

Another thing I liked is the open-endedness of the game - something I find many historical games suffer from is shoving you in a corner with regards to your options - If you want to pull France out of the hundred years war and conquer England, then you can do it. If you want to colonize California as Russia, you can do it. There are 'missions', although these are voluntary and are really more of a guide than anything else.

Colonization works in areas where there is no major countr or empire present - for example, most of Eastern Russia, The America's, etc. Sending settlers here will establish colonies, then cities, etc - and any country can do this.

The game, although you may not realise it, educates you about history to a large extent, which is certainly no bad thing. There are little things here and there that contribute to this - the events, for starters.

Overall, it's a very good game. I have heard that it isn't too far removed from the first game, and is almost practically a revised version of it, so you shoudl perhaps avoid it if yuo have the first.

 

[Richard III]

Thanks. I'll buy on the next paycheque.

R.III

 

[Hitro]

I have it since two weeks ago, but i haven't had that much time to play it. In the games I played it seemed to be very interesting, especially for people generally interested in history.
In my first game I played my home 'state' (Bremen) to get used to the game. Naturally the chances to form a Bremen world Empire are not that great. But I had fun at creating a nice little realm in Northern Germany/Netherlands. Unfortunately my expansion plans were seriously damaged by the evil Scandinavians, who dared to form an alliance against me.

A played other games with bigger states (Portugal, Castilia, Japan), it's another way of playing then in terms of dimension. Instead of taken over a province you can think about taking over a continent then.

I've heard that your general politics settings (for example navy vs. army) can influence if you get explorers. Don't know much about it though.

 

[FrosTi]

Originally posted by Hamlet
Does anyone have this?

I'm playing as France at the moment, but I never seem to get any explorers or anything - I think it seems to be based on what country you play as - Portugal and Spain seem to have colonised quite a few places, yet I have yet to get one explorer/conquistador as of yet.

Any suggestions, anyone?

It's a good game, though.

You'll get a lot of explorers/conquistadors in the 17th century and some in the 16th one... Just be patient

 

[dawgboy]

Rather than ask in a Civ Forum, you probably want to go to

www.europa-universalis.com

The forums there will pretty much tell you everything you want to know.

I love EU 2. I also love Civ 3. But they are entirely different games and you really can't compare them to each other.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I love europa UniversalisI & II ,i have both games and i even play it more than civ. (sorry)

And i am a long time veteran of the game ,who almost know's everything about it.I play it a lot in mp since there are a lot of Flemmish EU players out there. (just check the EU forum's)

you can ask me any question if you want to.

About the french explorer's ,they come around 1520.I have to warn you though with playing France ,around 1570 they get the Religious war's ,wich result's in a massive number of rebel's to put down.

another tip for playing France: Eventually when you come toward's the 18th century you don't want to miss out on the French revolution.now the french revolution is another of those time's when a lot of revolt's come up that are hard to put down ,but if you manage to fight trough it eventually you will get the best leader in the whole game: Napoleon (a.k.a Nappy for the Eu forum insider's )
But te French revolution can only occur if The U.S manage's to declare independance from England ,so you might give them some aid.

If you get Napeoleon ,don't use him to siege province's ,or he'll die soon.Rather use him to destroy the main opponent force's ,he will kill everything on his path ,even when being not to much outnumbered.

if you manage to defeat Prusia ,austria ,Spain and Poland ,then don't take any land's from them ,rather vazalize them.If you manage to vazalize these four country's ,the you get a nice event basicly saying that the world is yours.

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by TheDuckofFlanders
if you manage to defeat Prusia ,austria ,Spain and Poland ,then don't take any land's from them ,rather vazalize them.If you manage to vazalize these four country's ,the you get a nice event basicly saying that the world is yours.

Nah, a spoiler!

I would like to ask you a question, if you don't mind.

I started playing the game again now that I have a little more time for it. So I still don't know so much about, at least that's what I think. I think I do quite well with war, diplomacy and trade but I have difficulties with the economy in general. Could you give me some basic advice how to structure that?
Are there any very important steps to take?

P.S.: Where's Hamlet? Haven't seen him for weeks.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I started playing the game again now that I have a little more time for it. So I still don't know so much about, at least that's what I think. I think I do quite well with war, diplomacy and trade but I have difficulties with the economy in general. Could you give me some basic advice how to structure that?

ok ,here are some tips:

By far the best way to make a lot of money is through trade.Getting pure monopolies in COT's that have a value of more than 400d will make you stinking rich.(pure monopolie is when you are the only one trading in it)
You can achieve this by either owning a COT that nobody know's about (for ex. getting a new COT in a colonie in Indonesia) ,or by owning a COT and by initianating trade embargo's on everybody that dare's to trade in it.Mind though that putting trade embargo's on a country mean's a loss of 1 stabilety and will most probably ruin youre relations with that country.
Afcourse before you can get monopolies you must have trade tech3. A poppular tactic used by a lot of player's is to make trade agreement's with every nation they know of ,and then get 5 trader's in every COT they know of ,wich will never be ousted due to youre trade agreement's.Note that having 5 trader's in about every COT will bring you in about 500D every month by 1550Ad ,probably even more than that.
Play Country's like Holland and Flander's ,after Calvin these country's will most probably become Reformed catcholic's ,wich will give them an addition of 20% of their trade income.
Go full Free trade in youre dp slider's window if youre using the trade agreement's trick ,free trade will give you a boost to youre trader's income ,as well as supplying you with ore trader's each year.

Capture a COT ,owning a COT will bring you in lot's of cash due to trade tarrif's ,and the tax value of the province with the COT will be very high.

Promote Taxcollecter's ,legalcounsel's and Gouvernor's.Tax colecter's will increase the tax output in a province (but revolt risk wil increase by 3% ,so you might consider not building them in province's that revolt much) ,Legalcounsel's will increase tax and production output ,and will decrease revolt risk.Gouvernor's will increase tax output and will decrease revolt risk.In addition ,every gouvernor you appoint will result in a -1% inflation.
In addition ,building one of these three in a province will increase demand of good's in the new world.
Build Manufacturies to.They cost about 800D average ,that's quite some cash but they increase the production of a province ,raise it's tax income ,raise youre research speed and raise the demand of oversea's goods.

Watch youre inflation.In youre financial screen you can set the slider of how much money you want to get every month and how much you want to invest in research.f you put youre slider in te possitive for money each month inflation will increase depending on how much cash you are minting.Note that Inflation increases the cost for everything: Colonies and TP's ,army's and navy's ,tax collecter's ,...
Capturing province's that produce gold can get you a lot of cash (like the Aztec province's ,for ex. Tenochtitlan has a net income of 280D ,in comparison a normal European province bring's in about 20D.But ,if youre income of gold is more than 25% of youre net income ,you'll get 0.44% inflation every year ,wich can be quite crippling.

If you play a game with lot's of colonization ,go for province's with certain good's.For ex Tobacco province's are very interresting ,they bring in lot's of cash and trade and the demand will only increase in the future.Spice's ,Sugar ,Chinaware ,Coffee ,thea and Ivory are very very interresting commodetie's too.
Cotton will not bring in much cash in the beginning ,But they can bring in lot's of cash if a lot of the slave producing province's in Africa are well colonized ,and in addition the price's of slave's will increase to.So if you have lot's of cotton province's ,colonize a lot of slave province's to.

A last thing: Never take loan's unless if you really need to.Taking much loan's will seriously cripple youre economy's ,as will as it will increase youre inflation dramaticly.If you take more than 5 loan's and you can't repay them ,then you will go bankrupt wich will lead to an increase of inflatrion by 30% (in addition to other unpleasent things)

Well that's about a summeration ,i think i gave forgotten something's but i guess these tips will help you more than enough at this point.

And about the spoiler thing: There are just so much hidden thing's in EU that even the most experienced player's don't know everything.That's the fun of EU ,there will always be new thing's to learn.For ex. a lot of event's have unhistorical option's wich may very well change the whole course of history of a nation ,wich may very well turn out very good or very bad.

 

[Hitro]

Thanks alot for the extensive help!

I'm playing a game with Burgund right now. I will try out your strategies, but at first I have to "collect" some provinces.

P.S.: The spoiler thing wasn't meant that serious...

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Ouch ,Burgundy ,that's a touch one.under normal term's Burgendy get's split between Austria and france after the 100 years war.

In any case ,you won't get any good monarch's or leader's after 1500 ,so then it might be a boring game.but you might wanna defeat France in total ,if you manage to annex france you get the option to become France yourself Afaik.

And then you would have France and the possesion's in holland.Now you might wan't to hold a very strong grip on it ,as from 1560 to 1630 the dutch province's will revolt continually ,but if you can prevent Holland from forming than you get dutch culture.

 

[AVN]

I have read a number of reviews of this game and I am considering buying of this game, but I still have 2 questions.

Hope anyone can answer them.

1 Apparently it's not a turn based game. Does one get enough time to make decisions or is it necessary to make decisions very fast (sometimes I like to have a lot of time). How does this work.

2 Can you give an estimate how much time a scenario takes.
Of course this is dependant of playing speed and maybe experience, but a rough estimate is fine. (For example playing a complete CIV3 game (till 2050) costs me 40 till 60 hours, and I hope that playing a scenario in EU2 costs me less).

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

1 Apparently it's not a turn based game. Does one get enough time to make decisions or is it necessary to make decisions very fast (sometimes I like to have a lot of time). How does this work.

It's real time ,but there is an easy way to set the game speed and you can pauze at every moment ,so it's perfectly controlable.

2 Can you give an estimate how much time a scenario takes.

Depending on the game speed you play about 10-20 Hours for 1 game.

 

[Hitro]

Another question:
What can I do to reduce the probabilty of revolts?
Does it get reduced automatically through time if the province has the state religion?

 

[DrNo]

To reduce revolt risk yo may promote your mayors to governos. It reduces in 1% both revolt risk and inflaction

You sould notice that religion afect dramaticali the revolt risk (rr). To reduce this you can conver try to convert the province or go to the religious polices and augment the tolerance to this religion.

Religion, stability and nationalism are the mayor factors of RR. Try to stay at stability +3 always and have ocupational army in "nationalist" regions. The nationalism will end if wait enougth years.