There are just so many nice things about this expansion, it’s hard to gush about them all, but…
I particularly like the mission system. I thought I’d hate it, because I hated EU2’s, but it really does give the game some nice focus. I had no idea that’s what was missing from the game, but now that the missions are in there, I don’t think I could go back. It’s taken a lot of the burden off of me to make major strategic decisions.
I am also in love with the missionary/colony system revamp. I am much happier with a maintenance cost as opposed to a one-off cross-your-fingers deal. I never used to bother to convert provinces to my own religion unless I was really, really rich. Now, I do it all the time. The cost/benefit ratio has gone way up.
I honestly can’t think of anything I don’t like, but it usually takes me a couple weeks to start griping.
I messed around with it last night for a bit, and it looks pretty good so far.
Unless I just haven’t found it yet I think they could use a better interface to view and make province level decisions, but still it looks like a pretty solid expansion so far.
Oh yeah. I’m with you on that. I just realized that I didn’t implement any of the province level stuff last night because I didn’t feel like clicking around to all my provinces.
He’s talking about the new EU3 expansion pack, that radically alters how the game plays in a million different ways.
I’m really enjoying it, too. The mission system gives you a sense of direction with little bonuses here and there for completing them. You can ignore the missions altogether, of course. Because the AI is now programmed to handle the missions, I think they have done a lot to slow down the super huge empires that popped up in Europe after 50 years. Maybe France is less concerned with mowing down Savoy since it has the mission to “be nice to Hainaut”.
The early province level missions don’t seem like a great deal until you hit the trade age big time, but yeah, the decision interface could be better than it is. The descriptions of the consequences and the requirements are too close together to be quickly found.
Rebels are a serious threat now. I had a couple of false starts because I sort of neglected a small rebel army in my capital. You can make peace with them if you meet their demands, too, so they aren’t just mindless rabble.
My big gripe is that they took out the stability hit for declaring war on a nation from a different religious group than you, so it’s really easy for Spain to go even more nuts in North Africa. At least it makes the Balkans a seething pit of resentment.
I feel like as long as you get the hidden ‘badboy’ hit for going on a crusade, it’s still balanced. Not getting the stab hit… it just fits… I don’t know how to put it another way. I was always put off that were censured by your nobles for doing something totally in character for the late middle ages/age of discovery.
It’s only a Crusade if someone calls it, though. If Iberia is freelancing through Morocco, I don’t think there’s much of a penalty. Besides, my mission was Conquer Algiers. I had to do it.
I completely agree that it is in keeping with the period, and it will make conquering India less of a pain in the ass. But game balance wise, I wonder how it will work especially in multiplayer. If I start next to a bunch of heathens and you start next to Orthodox central, one of us will conquer more faster.
That’s a valid concern, especially now, because they turned off ‘bad boy’ wars in multiplayer games. I hadn’t thought of that. ‘BB wars’ are what keep the really aggressive players in check.
I don’t believe there is a super pack yet, but Paradox has a history of releasing an ‘Anthology’ when they have decided they are done with a particular title. I haven’t had word of that for EU3.
You need all the expansions to really enjoy EU3. The vanilla game is sorely lacking, which makes the expansions ‘optionally required’. It’s well worth the price of admission, though.
No super pack of EU3, no. In Nomine just came out yesterday. You can skip the earlier expansion I think and just go straight to IN.
It’s a tough call as to whether or not to play the base game. EU3 is much, much more enjoyable with IN, but it is also more difficult, I think. But that could be because I picked up a lot of bad habits in the original…Things sort of make more common sense now, but there are some major changes that force you to pay attention to rebel uprisings and the like.
The game is still underdocumented with poor tutorials, but there are lots of good entry points for just jumping in and kicking butt. You can probably find a couple of threads about that on this forum.
I’ve always sort of enjoyed just going in and messing about with mechanics, seeing how the game ticks, but I will be sure to return for help when I find myself at the guillotine … Thanks, robo and Troy.
With IN you can now play from 1399 to 1821, and select any date within that range as your starting point. Wherever you start, you start with the historical setup and people but everything after that is randomly generated as you play.
(You can play just with historical monarchs, leaders and advisors if you choose those options in the setup screen, but I recommend against it unless you are only interested in playing out a short scenario like the Thirty Years War or the American Revolution. Those settings take a lot of tools off the table like government changes, royal marriages, inheritances and the like.)
