Europa Universalis III - Control Europe with a Click of the Mouse

eToychest recently spoke with Paradox Interactive's Johan Andersson regarding the company's recently released Europa Universalis III, an epic strategy game for the PC. Paradox Interactive has made a name for itself with complex strategy games for the PC, appealing to a nice audience of hardcore enthusiasts. The most recognizable of these is, of course, Europa Universalis, which began its life in 2001 as a quality strategy epic that let players take control of Eupropean countries in a struggle to wage war and make Europe their own. The series' latest incarnation, Europa Universalis III, which was recently released to retail, features more options and intricacies than ever before, and delves deeply into the areas of exploration, trade, warfare and diplomacy. Europa Universalis also gives players freedom to rule their nation from an impressive choice of over 250 historically accurate countries.

eToychest recently spoke with Johan Andersson just prior to the game's release in order to get some insight into game. Andersson worked as the game's director of development, and as such was heavily involved in all development aspects of Europa Universalis III. He has been with Paradox since 1999 and has worked as the game designer and lead-programmer for the Europa Universalis series, as well as the original Hearts of Iron.

Hello Johan. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us regarding Europa Universalis III. More than any other series released by Paradox Interactive, the Europa Universalis franchise made the company a household name, particularly among PC strategy game enthusiasts. To what do you attribute this?

The game has an almost unheard of scope and depth, and we have put a lot of attention to the details and actual history. All this leads to a game with immense replayability, which is one of the reasons people play our games for such a long time. But the main reason is obviously that our games are fun to play, and that being the developers, also think it's fun to play.

For those who may not be among the series' existing fan base, can you describe briefly what Europa Universalis III is all about?

EU III is a grand strategy game that spans 300 years from 1453 to 1789. Players can explore, use diplomacy, wage war and use trade to gain as much power as possible and expand their empire. It is a game for people that are interested in a little bit of a challenge even though this game is much easier to get into than any of our previous games. There is a huge community surrounding the franchise that adds both life span and exciting twists to gameplay, especially in multiplayer.

What does this game do differently compared to the previous Europa Universalis titles?

There is so much it would take too long to go over it but the brief answer is:

• Players can start at any date during 300 years and everything in the game will be accurately reflected for that specific day


• Nation building is flexible


• You will have tons of historical personalities and great people in history at your disposal


• A 3D map with more than 1700 provinces and sea zones


• More than 250 countries, 1000 historical leaders and over 4000 historical Monarchs


• Many more options for customization and moddability

For this third iteration of the series, Paradox has introduced a new graphics engine. If you had to pick one thing that this new engine brings to the game, what would that be? And perhaps more importantly, why is this so important?

Scalability, it can affect resolutions, how the map works etc. This has benefited both the development and programming but will also benefit the player.

Your games covers over 300 years of history by allowing players to take part in campaigns set at any date between 1453 and 1789. Why exactly were these years chosen?

You can play all the "big" countries in 1453 and it's just after the fall of Constantinople and the 100-year war. 1789 is just before the French revolution and we felt it was a good year to end, as there are some changes to the combat system after that.



Europa Universalis III features a number of historical personalities, such as Sir Isaac Newton and René Descartes. How do these personalities impact the gameplay?

Players can recruit these advisors to their courts and gain specific bonuses.

Continuing with this, since the game will feature such a far reaching scope covering so many historical leaders, provinces, numerous units, and controllable countries, it seems as if it could be very easy to get lost in all that Europa Universalis III offers. Could you break down how the game keeps all of this manageable so that a player doesn't feel as if he or she is drowning?

The interface is intuitive and includes alerts, tool tips an outliner tracking the players progress. In addition to that, we have an interactive tutorial, extensive manual and a forum with members that are more than willing to help new players enjoy the game.

Obviously, artificial intelligence plays a key role in any strategy title such as this. What measures have been taken to ensure that the AI in Europa Universalis III is challenging and adaptive, yet accommodating enough to ensure that multiple skill levels will be able to enjoy the game?

We have done countless hours of research, development, testing with different types of players but most importantly, we have incorporated AI experiences and leanings from more than a decade of strategy game development.

How does nation building work in this game? We hear it's "flexible", but that term can mean a lot of different things to different people.

There are multiple options like choosing different government forms, national ideas that you can embrace as a country and that allows you to do things like explore, keep more troops on the battlefield etc. Players can fine tune their domestic policies and choose if a nation should be closer to democratic or autocratic, centralized or decentralized etc.

Let's talk multiplayer. Europa Universalis III will feature cooperative multiplayer gameplay. What can players expect from this mode, and what does it do differently than other similar strategy titles on the market?

We give complete freedom to the players to decide exactly how and what they want to play. You can play up to 32 players in a multiplayer game and in cooperative multiplayer; there are no limits to how many gamers can play one single country.



What sorts of customization options have been introduced within Europa Universalis III?

Everything is based upon text and bit map files, which are easily user configurable and can create a huge amount of user modifications.

What was the most significant obstacle that you had to be overcome in developing Europa Universalis III, and how was this done?

To be honest, the biggest obstacle was to design an even better game than EU II, which we all loved and is still being played even though it was released more than 5 years ago. I can confidently say we have risen to the challenge

Finally, with a game of this caliber, there are obviously a number of different ways to play and strategies to employ. From a personal standpoint, how do you play the game? What do you focus on for the first few turns to help ensure success?

I always look at the long-term prospects and do not make any short-term decisions. Since it is a long game to play, things can change rapidly which is also one of the biggest attraction of the game.

Jan 29, 2007 - 6:24 am | 0 comments
Jason Dobson