Hearts of Iron I think is an excellent argument for why WW2 doesn’t work with the EU2 engine.
If you’re looking for an EU2 mod (the original question) the major one is the Event Exchange Project (EEP) which adds a ton of events to the game and is pretty much the de-facto modded version since it borged all the other major E2 mods. Link: http://home.broadpark.no/~havmoe/EU/EEP.htm
The EU engine is great for sandbox-style empire building play. History buffs can play out some fascinating what-ifs using the EU engine. The combat portion of the EU engine was adequate, but not very compelling.
Trying to simulate WW2 plays against the strengths of the EU engine. Not enough enough time-frame for empire building, lots and lots of not-very-interesting combat.
install it on a clean eu2 1.08. it’s still being finished afaik but it’s been pretty stable as i’ve played it(as stable as eu2 ever is). that’s not to say it doesn’t have a lot of events or new stuff but i’ve seen at least one bug(which i just clicked ignore when loading my save and it worked fine).
i’ve only played as the mongols so far but some of the other countries look really interesting. the shot below was from my game as the mongols around 1220. this mod also has a few surprises you might not expect.
it might be really interesting to play a country which will have to stand up the mongols as they are pretty much insanely powerful(due to their events/manpower/generals/economy).
Holy crap. Crusader Kings looks pretty freakin’ amazing. I’ve been wanting a real dynastic/feudal strategy game for some time. Medieval: Total War fit the bill a wee little bit but didn’t really get into the internal politics of the era, except in very broad strokes, that gave it its actual character. Romance of The Three Kingdoms VIII has the internal politics of personalities and, the PC version not in English, has elements like marraige and child rearing (or so I’m told).
But nothing’s really captured the sense of bloodlines, heirs, personalities, intrigues, and juggling wilful vassals with their own agendas along with one’s duty to one’s lord. I found a cool review on Strategy Gaming Online, picked at random after reading this thread, that just has my tongue hanging out. EU2 is an amazingly fun game and a seriously retooled engine that does the feudal era right…wow. How did I miss this one? Possibly because of the lukewarm receptions of Victoria and Hearts of Iron I’d just started tuning it out.
Has anyone played Galilea’s Pax Romana? Evidently it’s a pretty intense and historically accurate modelling of the political, economic and military of the Roman Republic. Internal and external. The lead designer here is evidently the original designer of the Europa Universalis boardgame. I haven’t popped it in yet as I was waiting on a patch, hear it’s got some issues, but it does look like it’s got potential. The forums when I read them seemed full of fans who loved the gameplay but wanted the problems fixed.
Well, I guess I got ahead of myself and placed an order with Chips and Bits. I couldn’t even find a listing for it on EB Games. Game Stop didn’t have it coming out for some time and didn’t seem to have an online ordering feature (that I could tell). On Amazon, for some reason, it’s listed as discontinued or no longer in stock.
And do we really need that huge ass map in this thread? :)
Pax Romana is mostly unfulfilled promise. Though the political part is quite good, the strategic end is a real mess. Lots of bugs, bizarre AI decisions, lack of any useful diplomacy, etc.
A new patch was promised for May, but people are still waiting.
I should have a review up on Gamespy before too long.
I don’t think I’m jumping the gun to say overall I give
Crusder Kings a thumbs up. I think guys like Brian and
Jason Lutes will definitely dig it.
The AI is no better, but the number of cheats added to the AI make it appear competent.
I don’t care how the AI does it - great coding or massive cheating - I just expect some sort of challenge on the highest difficulty setting. When I’m Russia and I control most of Europe, all of the Middle East, and most of North and South America - what’s the point? The SS above doesn’t give me much hope.
It looks like the makers of EEP have merged their kit with the Alternate Grand Campaign mod. So far I’ve played about 70 years into the “AGCEEP” mod as Sweden. I can’t really comment yet, as it’s still so early, but the makers say this mod does a better job of making the game dynamic, so the events follow from each other, rather than appearing as checkpoints that become increasingly nonsensical as your game diverges from real history.
I also tried to use the Modern Day Scenario. It looked really sexy, but apparently has been a dead beta for over a year. I get CTDs within the first game year. You can get it here (Modern Day Scenario (MDS) | Paradox Interactive Forums), but to even make it start you have to hunt down the updated “unlimited time patch” here. Also, this mod basically requires a second install of EU2 on your hd, unlike AGCEEP. If anybody else bothers to install it and make it work, let me know.
I think a lot of the challenges in EU2 depends on who you play as and when. England in the 1492 scenario is just as easy as in the original. One of the historic losers, Poland say, is probably more difficult.
This thread inspired me to reinstall EU2, and I’m much more into it this time around. Maybe experience on other Paradox titles has finally gotten me over the curve but it seems much better documented than, say, Victoria. Also playing some easier scenarios is making it a lot easier to manage.
That’s what I love about EU2. The mechanics are good enough that they can put nations in their historical positions and let the scenarios play out and end up with a reasonably good analogue of what really happened. I really enjoyed that they didn’t have to “cheat” to get outcomes that were historically plausible. That made it all the more satisfying to take someone like the Aztecs and expand them into a massive world power.
<Lum> adds, um, diplomacy, apparently
<Lum> alliances and stuff
<Stab|Work> hotness
<Lum> - Pillaging now gives the effect to the CONTROLLER of the province, not the owner.
<Lum> Woot, pillage fixed!
<Lum> RAAAIDING PARTY!
<Stab|Work> You download the AI build fix Lum?
<Lum> no
<Lum> was waiting for 1.03
<Lum> now I know what I’m doing this weekend!
<Lum> I am such a geek.
