Does anybody play EU3?

zegh8578

zegh8578

Keeper of the trout
Orderite
Is it at all possible to tech-research as Incas?

Every now and then I really wanna give Inca gameplay a chance, see how far I can take it, but every time I am demoralized at how utterly impossible it seems to play.
My research sliders promise finished research - at best - centuries past 2000AD.

Meaning I can do fuckall untill long after Vault 13 re-opens up in North America -.-

Well, I can build club men. I cannot expand. I cannot build things. I cannot upgrade, or sail, or explore. I can sit tight, and build clubmen.

The few strategy guides I've seen to be optimistic, and just ramble on as usual "set ur gvt slider high, you should achieve Gvt lvl 1 within 1480" 1480 my ass :I

Any ideas, or is it a stillborn ambition?
 
It's theoretically possible, but a waste of time. You should find a more fun game to play. I tried developing a little African nation into an empire once. Gave up in a few days. I'll probably never play EU again.

All EU games are hopelessly Euro-centric. If you don't play as one of the major European powers, there is very little that you can accomplish. China and Japan will work too, I think. Pretty much all other nations are useless. Even if you play as a major power, EU tries to railroad you down a realistic historical path. You end up replaying history for the most part. Not good game design, if you ask me.
 
New World cultures research at 10% of Western cultures, but it goes faster than that up to level 4.

Playing new world countries is basically about planning meticulously and then waiting a while. If you set things up right, and have a wee bit of luck with the monarch you have, you can take the first step in westernisation the moment Europeans first set foot on your continent. They you hold them off for a few years, and research should start catching up quite rapidly.

Of course, you're always going to be having a hard time. Call it Euro-centric, but it makes sense to me - historically too, they didn't stand much chance. In fact, in the game it's actually easier than it was in real life - in EU3 you don't have to contend with diseases that cull 95% of your population and you at least have the possibility to westernise.
 
And that's my beef with EU. The game just assumes that "they didn't stand much chance". You end up replaying history then. Boring.
 
I kinda like that freedom with the Paradox games, such as with Hearts of Iron, I tend to play as Peru and accomplish next-to-nothing - but you get to battle Ecuador, for example. As long as it is technically possible to play, it can be fun to give it a go. With some patience of course :D

But yes, it becomes very Euro-centric - which makes sense, but gets in the way of some what-if-gameplay. I would for example try to create a modern peruvian empire (lulz) but I always knew that there was no way in hell I could ever catch up to USA and their tech development.
I used to try to create modern world maps for HOI2, which ended up needing a non-stop overhaul of the industrial capacity distribution - just to prevent Sweden and Denmark and such from continously developing armies twice that of India and Pakistan, while countries like Nigeria were lucky to produce a single infantry unit over the course of decades :D
 
fedaykin said:
And that's my beef with EU. The game just assumes that "they didn't stand much chance". You end up replaying history then. Boring.
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So, you don't like that the game is realistic? And lulz @ "eurocentric". Europa Universalis.
 
Dragula said:
fedaykin said:
And that's my beef with EU. The game just assumes that "they didn't stand much chance". You end up replaying history then. Boring.
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So, you don't like that the game is realistic? And lulz @ "eurocentric". Europa Universalis.
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The game does after all have a playable world map. You have the option to play as the Songhai, if one would insist to. It creates a sense of expectation.
 
If you want to play, for instance, the Aztecs with a tech-research level on par with the west, just edit the history file or your save game (the latter is preferrable) and change their tech group from "new world" to "western". Takes like five minutes.

Also, you don't "replay history". I've never seen a single EU3 game that had an outcome remotely like real history.

EU2 was more "guilty" in that regard, although on the other hand that did teach me a shitload about actual history. It helps put everything into context in a way you'd otherwise have to spend a shitload of time studying for.
 
Jebus said:
If you want to play, for instance, the Aztecs with a tech-research level on par with the west, just edit the history file or your save game (the latter is preferrable) and change their tech group from "new world" to "western". Takes like five minutes.
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I was suspecting this game would be easily tweakable as well. I hadn't explored those possibilities yet tho. It certainly is tempting now :D

I was for example happy to see it's possible to save game, and load as another nation. It can have its uses if you want to "compose" wars, I used it extensively for some HOI2 playthroughs in order to imitate as much historical outcome as possible.
For EU3 I only used it once, in order to win back my beloved and much essential Orkney islands, suddenly the invading brits were more than eager to make peace and give me back my island :]
 
Jebus said:
If you want to play, for instance, the Aztecs with a tech-research level on par with the west, just edit the history file or your save game (the latter is preferrable) and change their tech group from "new world" to "western". Takes like five minutes.
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That's a fairly extreme cheat, IMO. Not that there's anything wrong with that if you want to do it. I'd probably just jack up my tech a few levels in each area, though -- something more subtle. The effects of small head start at the beginning amplify over the course of the game. Give yourself enough government tech to stop being a tribe, and everything will become much, much easier.
 
Well, I'd consider playing and surviving as a backwards tech nation fun on its own, but if people are going to whine the Aztecs should have as much chance to "win" as, say, the French do then they can knock themselves out.

EU3 is extremely malleable, you can set up all kinds of fun alternative starting scenarios. I usually "release" Flanders from Burgundy at the start, and then lead Flanders to unite Germany, or colonise all of America, or give Flanders its own religion "The church of Jebus" and see how much of the world I can bring into the light before the game ends.
The potential is infinite. If you've played it as often as I have, though, it becomes repetitive after a while. I conquered France so many times I'm now more aware of their geography than I ever wanted to be.
 
Jebus said:
Well, I'd consider playing and surviving as a backwards tech nation fun on its own, but if people are going to whine the Aztecs should have as much chance to "win" as, say, the French do then they can knock themselves out.

EU3 is extremely malleable, you can set up all kinds of fun alternative starting scenarios. I usually "release" Flanders from Burgundy at the start, and then lead Flanders to unite Germany, or colonise all of America, or give Flanders its own religion "The church of Jebus" and see how much of the world I can bring into the light before the game ends.
The potential is infinite. If you've played it as often as I have, though, it becomes repetitive after a while. I conquered France so many times I'm now more aware of their geography than I ever wanted to be.
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^
:D

Yeah, I wasn't looking for an _easy_ way to play as Incas, but reaching Gvt lvl 1 within 2300 AD seemed a little wee bit too difficult, since the game doesnt seem to move much past 1700s AD

But hot damn, they were difficult anyway, eh, I tried once again with the damn incas, this time I did nothing, did it well, and did it for a long time.
Out of the blue a random event happens to me, peasants or something, rise up, and whackety-wham, my nation collapses, and is replaced by the Chimu.
"-.-"

At least playing as Norway, I have been capable of - honestly and non cheatingly - repelling Swedish invasions on two occations!
In your face Sweden! Arrogant pricks!
 
zegh8578 said:
Out of the blue a random event happens to me, peasants or something, rise up, and whackety-wham, my nation collapses, and is replaced by the Chimu.
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That's an event specific to tribal governments. If you're a tribe and you have more than 9 provinces you get whacked on the head with it pretty frequently. The obvious solution is to make sure you never have more than 9 provinces.

Hellion said:
Wouldn't call it exactly "replaying history" :P
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Greek cowboys. Heh.
 
I still consider myself a noob to this game. I have long been tempted to try it out, but I am usually looking for "something more civilization-like", while I of course realize Civ is the most Civ-like game there is.

The learning curve for EU3 wasn't too steep, cus I am well used to HOI2, so there is a lot of the same mechanisms, but I am getting more used to it now.
I tend to play very OCD-ish, sticking to playing Norway cus I'm from there, or Spain, cus I'm sortof from there too :D
Incas cus, well, I'm kinda sortof from there as well.
On HOI2 I am a bit more flexible often sticking to USSR because of the epicness involved, or sometimes Germany, just to see how far I can take it. I also tried as Communist China but the game always crashes sooner or later playing as them. Nifty. -.-

Lately I am trying out a little more countries on EU3, trying Japan the other day, which was fun enough, Got some peasant uprising to deal with, and a little save as the Aztecs, which was more actiony than the lonesome Inca at least. I quickly got the oportunity to war and expand as the Aztecs.
Countries too big, such as China and (eventually) Spain (with all its conquests) get a bit bothersome, because.. there's so damn much to take care of, defend, maintain and control.
At least as Norway I have only 6-10 thousand troops to worry about, and just make sure Sweden don't try anything :D
(Orkney islands are lost to Scotland/Britain at some point or other, no matter how I plan or prepare :D)
 
I rarely play anything other than Germany in the HOI games. Nothing else seems all that exciting in the long run - invading the USA with the Soviet Union takes too long to be fun (catching up in navy for 5 to 6 years gets boring fast), for instance.
 
Jebus said:
I rarely play anything other than Germany in the HOI games. Nothing else seems all that exciting in the long run - invading the USA with the Soviet Union takes too long to be fun (catching up in navy for 5 to 6 years gets boring fast), for instance.
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I played as Norway, once. I knew where I was headed, but I managed to actually push them off once. Like the real life Blücher sinking :')
Then they returned, landed more troops, and I was finished.

HOI2 at least is extremely crash-happy tho, and will rarely let me play much past the liberation of Europe, so I rarely got the chance to really try out my own little ventures.
Years ago I managed to re-create the world in 1990s, as complete as possible, using every nation slot possible, overwriting plenty of the existing ones (rendering all ww2 playing useless).
I finally had a save where I, as the Russian Federation, was battling chechen rebels.
Very unfortunately, that one, little, inevitable error happened, somewhere in my meddling, and crashed the whole thing on loading. Ahwell. Re tried that feat many times since, but it was a huge pain in the ass. I even managed to force nationalist china onto Taiwan and keep them there, and stuff. Tons of meddling the save file... Huge pain :D But the only time I've beheld a playable world map of the 1990s (Which is still my dream, a playable modern world map, and nothing less!)
 
I haven't played HoI2 in years (I'm waiting for the definitive version of HoI3 to come out someday), but my favorite countries to play were Italy, France (after having gone fascist but not joining the Axis), and Romania trying to join the Allies. For Romania I would always stipulate that I would not give up one inch of territory to anyone without a fight. I could hold off the Soviets when they attacked me over Bessarabia, but then Hitler would demand territory for Hungary and declare war when I refused. I never succeeded at that game, but it was fun. Spanish Civil War is also pretty good.

In EU3 I find the most addictive country to play is Byzantium.

Lately I've been trying the Death & Taxes mod, and I like it so far.
 
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