Europa Universalis III: Complete |  | From: Paradox
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $8.99
as of 3/16/2010 17:03 CDT details
You Save: $21.00 (70%)
New (13) Used (4) from $8.99
Seller: Blowout_Electronics
Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 1871
Format: DVD-ROM
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Genre: strategy_games
ESRB: Everyone 10+
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 1.2
MPN: EUROPAUNIV3CMP
Model: PDX40
UPC: 894785002034
EAN: 0894785002034
ASIN: B001EK7S82
Release Date: October 23, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Flexible Nation Building ¿ decide on your type of government, the structure of your society, your trade politics and much, much more | | • | Highly detailed and interactive cities which are unique for each culture | | • | Use historical Ideas and recruit Great Men in order to make your country flourish the way you want it to | | • | Co-operative multiplayer over LAN or Internet |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
...You may earn salvation under my command, but hardlyriches
Europa Universalis III delves deeply into the areas of exploration, trade,warfare and diplomacy. It is an epic strategy game where players takecontrol of a nation and guide it through the ages to become a great globalempire. Thousands of missions and decisions create a deeply engrossinghistorical framework, where you guide your country through the eras to writehistory as you intend it to be. Included in the collection is the multipleaward- winning Europa Universalis III enhanced by the expansions Napoleon?sAmbition and In Nomine. The timeline of the original game has beenexpanded, forward through the Napoleonic Era to 1820, and backwards to let youstart as early as 1399, while the Hundred Years War between England and Franceis still going on.
- Europa Universalis III
- In Nomine Expansion Pack
- Napoleon's Ambition Expansion Pack
Europa Universalis III
Unparalleled in its depth and historical accuracy, Europa Universalis III givesthe player unprecedented freedom in how they choose to rule their nation from animpressive choice of over 250 historically accurate countries. Battle forcontrol of the seas, destroy or capture your enemies' ships so you can blockadehis ports and weaken economy. Play some of the most pivotal moments inhistory. Can you lad the Americans to liberty or do you want too crush therevolts against their rightful King? Build improvements for yourprovinces, like Market
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
 Don't buy this game March 3, 2010
Reginald Perrin (Southwest, US)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There is one overriding reason not to buy this game. It is still full of bugs, especially for certain OSs. There is also virtually no support provided by the developer for the game. When you encounter one of the many, many bugs that makes the game crash, or refuse to load, or even install, you will find no help from Paradox. You can go on to the user boards, and create a thread. Someone will be sure to give you a fix that requires a high level of computer programming expertise. Paradox furthermore has the nerve to release new mods, and charge for them, without fixing the many bugs.
I personally had no trouble installing the game, but then it wouldn't play without an elaborate fix to my OS (Vista). Many hours of frustration. When I finally did get it to play, it still crashed many times, seemingly at random. Added to this defect was the fact that saved game files often seemed to be corrupted, and crashed the game when loaded. I was never able to complete a scenario in this game, as no matter how many back-up saves I created, I always reached a point where all saved files caused the game to crash. Paradox also seems to be quite aware of the problems, as there are many user threads discussing them, but hasn't released any patch, and still states on their packaging and website that their product is supported by Vista, and other OSs. This statement is not true.
Game play itself is OK, but still lots of ahistorical and counterintuitive stuff in here, especially relating to the modeling of inflation and revolt risk. The addition of concepts like "reputation" and the Holy Roman Empire are only half thought out, and serve to make the game more frustrating than entertaining. There are lots of little gripes like that, too numerous to mention. And certain countries start with such overwhelming advantages (France) or have some weird advantages built in (programmers are clearly partial to Sweden, which always becomes one of the top economic and military powers by the middle of the game), that the whole game in unbalanced and not that fun to play.
But the main problem, as stated, is the large number of bugs that make it impossible to play the game through to the end. Paradox should be ashamed to have put such a clearly defective product on the market, and to have failed to have offered support or a decent fix to its customers.
 Unlimited Replayability February 24, 2010
M. Seabolt (Germany)
The title of my review basically gives the bottom line up front. The game is definitely fun, but what really puts it over the top for me is the unlimited replayability. There are hundreds of countries to select; each one will require its own unique set of paths to victory (or defeat). Notice I said paths; there is no single path per country.
Campaign Map: The Campaign Map is visually pleasing. It's nothing extravagant that requires the latest in video technology; but it does the trick. The nations and provinces are well laid out and the view control is what you would expect with any other map in any other game. There is minimal frustration with selecting items on the map at times. An Army icon might interfere with you selecting the town to view your settlement details. But if that is enough to frustrate you out of playing the game then I'd hate to see your reaction if you wound up on Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd" or fell victim to Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" or "Bruno".
Interface: First time players will find the interface difficult to use at first. Just start playing the game and you'll conquer the interface sooner than you think. It's another minor obstacle which when conquered will provide endless hours of enjoyment. The interface is the game. This is where you execute political, financial, military and religious decisions. You'll find at first that there is a lot on your plate and you may become discouraged. Once you learn how your decisions affect the game (which again, won't take long) you'll truly enjoy this game and will find it difficult to stop. There is so much you can do as you lead your nation through the gauntlet of empire hunting nations. You can conduct marriages, exchange map information, make trade agreements, make alliances, send gifts, send missionaries, send merchants, send spies, send colonists (who can either establish trading posts or colonies), offer loans (and control when they're paid back and at what rate) and more.
Political Slider: All of these different things you can do have positive and negative effects. The negative effect may simply be that it costs you money to initiate that event or, it might mean that the revolt risk in a province increases (and at times it may cause an instant rebellion). One of the most interesting options in this game is the ability to offset some of these effects every 10 years of game play by going to the political slider and moving one of the sliders one space to the left or right. For example, one slider offers you the ability to move your country in the direction of either being a nation of "serfdom" or a nation of "free trade". One option provides you merchants more often and at cheaper cost. The other provides merchants less often, makes them more expensive to send out, but they perform better. Then there is the "Land Warfare" and "Naval Warfare" slider which allows you to decide if you want your nation to be more of a naval power or more of a Land Warfare power. Just remember that when you move that slider there are always positive and negative effects. This is a game of balance. You must carefully consider every action and how it will affect gameplay.
Combat: If you are expecting combat in a form similar to the "Total War" or "Command and Conquer" Series than look elsewhere. There are no tactics involved. You basically assemble your army, march it to a province occupied by an enemy army and the AI figures out who wins. All you can do to effect the outcome is choose the types of units you put in your army. This is the case with both your Army and your Navy. The variety is not great, but this game is not about combat; it is about the strategic (and operational to some extent) management of a nation. And trust me, if you had to manage an individual battle you wouldn't finish a campaign until St. Peter opened the gates for you.
Loans: I had a problem with the loans in this game. This portion of my review is actually more of a gripe than a review. In the previous installments of this game I would use loans when playing as a small nation in order to become wealthy. I would loan out all my money and charge 10% interest. The loan would be for the max allowed number of months. So for all those months you collect the 10% interest and then you get the loan back at the end. Very rarely did a country decline my loan offers. Is it cheating???? Maybe, but it was fun to do. In this game the pendulum has swung the other way. I've not once managed to successfully offer a loan for more than 4% and also for not more than 24 months. In fact, rarely will the AI nations agree to a loan at all. More often than not when it is time for a nation to pay back the loan, they refuse. So, if you're familiar with that "get rich quick" scheme; don't try in EUIII. I would prefer the loans not work in such a way. I also don't want them to revert back to the way they were in EUI and II. But if they could've found a more middle of the road compromise on the loans then that would've been much more satisfactory.
So, you've read my ups and downs on this game; the downs are negligible in my opinion. If you're thinking of buying this game, quit thinking. Just buy it. If you like Strategy; you'll love this game.
 Too complex and boring January 12, 2010
Jeremy Casterson (Craig, CO USA)
0 out of 9 found this review helpful
Extremely complex, extremely slow, and extremely boring. Maybe I shouldn't have given up on this game so soon, but I just wasn't having any fun whatsoever playing it. Play Civ IV instead.
 Keep your credit card in your wallet for now December 29, 2009
Critic Lad
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
I'm here to say there is a NEW, third expansion to the game, HIER TO THE THRONE. I'm no good at paraphrasing other people's words, so I recommend going to [...], the company site, to learn more.
TO EVERYONE WHO SAYS IT DOESNT WORK ON VISTA December 29, 2009
A. Patel
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
It DOES work on Vista/Windows 7. There is a simple fix posted in the Paradox tech support forums thats been there for quite a while. The problem is that this game relies on Direct X9, where Vista has Direct X10. Theres a simple download posted that makes the game compatible. The people who wrote those nasty reviews were too stupid to check the online support on the forums. The manual is downloadable and its true the tutorial doesn't work.
This is by far the best strategy game ive every played. Historicly and Realistically it beats CIV IV and those other games. Instead of playing as Germany (no such nation existed till the 1800s) you can play has a duchy in the Holy Roman Empire, instead of playing as India (no such nation existed until the mid 1900s) you can play as the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, The Maharatha Confederacy, etc. The tactical and economic situation is complex yet simple to grasp. Don't make simple assumptions about a game before you check its tech support.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
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