Reviewed: September 17, 2003
Reviewed by: JoLene Lark
Publisher
Strategy First
Developer
Paradox Interactive
Released: July 23, 2003
Genre: Strategy
Players: 8
ESRB: Everyone
7
8
4
7
7.0
System Requirements
A few weeks ago I was begging for a challenging review and the big boss responded with Europa Universalis: Crown of the North from Paradox Entertainment. This game lives up to the saying that big things come in little packages as Paradox has provided two games for the price of one; Europa Universalis II which includes three new fully playable campaigns and Crown of the North, a free standing game that pre-dates Europa Universalis. Each game must be installed separately thus each part will be discussed individual in the following sections.
Crown of the North predates Europa Universalis II, taking place during the years of 1275 and 1340. This time period was historically a time where nobility and the church were the major power holders while the famous feudal society weakens and the nobility’s monarchies power increases.
Europa Universalis II is a real-time strategy game that spans from the late Middle Ages in 1419 through the Napoleonic era of 1815. This game is comprised of over 100 differing nations and you can choose to be ruler of any of them. An interesting thing to remember is that each province is unique and has its own culture, religion and political factions that can create turmoil within your own nation besides other countries. Like Crown of the North, a decision that you make affects the path your country will take.
In Crown of the North You are given the choice of being six different leaders from the countries of Sweden, Sodemanland, Finland, Denmark and Norway. Each leader comes with varying difficulties thus either making it easier or more difficult to you to win. There are two ways to win Crown of the North. The first way is to have the most victory points. The other is if you succeed in uniting the whole North under one king by December 31, 1340. This union was not completed historically until the late 1380’s and is hard to complete as your are basically eliminating all other players and their countries.
The game follows historical events in the most realistic way I have ever seen. Your country has four social classes in your provinces of which your main goal is to keep the nobility, clergy, burgers, and peasants loyalty high towards you. Also by controlling your provinces you are capable of manipulating their political, economical, social and religious elements to further advance your society. You will also be affected by the historical and random events that make it so no two games are identical. Thus for every event there are actions that you take that have positive or negative effects. Finally, the most powerful way for you to win this game is to have good military conquests over the other countries and a good defense for your own.
The last game play area that I wish to tell you about is going to be very broad in this review, however it is the most important since if you fail to master these steps you will not be able to succeed and conquer the Crown of the North. Like all games of this genre it is important to master the task of building the provinces' churches, castles, market, farmland and the many other locations that you need to succeed. The next area to master is the building of your army or fleet and the utilization of these troops to conquer the other provinces. The last area of mastery in Crown of the North is diplomacy. It is here that you must become a sweet talker so that you do not make enemies with all the other provinces, or your quest may end sooner than you like.
The first thing I would advise before playing Europa Universalis II is to complete the tutorial that Paradox provides. This tutorial and the documentation found on the CD allow a new player to the E.U. world a better chance at successfully finishing this game. There are over 100 different countries that range from French provinces to major countries like China. Each country has different flavors of religion and culture that either aid or deter you from completing your quest of building an empire. Thus don’t be surprised if you will face many rebellions inside your nation besides the external fights as you continue to expand. A feature I personally experienced is that you are prone to be attacked by other countries if you get too strong too quickly.
The many scenarios found in Europa Universalis II allow you to open up later periods of the 400 years so you don’t have to start at the beginning. Also of note is that there is a scenario that excludes almost all of the major nations and allows you to play a more straightforward conquest-based annihilation type of game.
I was mildly surprised by the graphical quality that Paradox has provided in this game. Prior to this game review I was the classic Age of Empires and Civilization player. This game kept me intrigued primarily due to the level of graphical quality and attention to detail.
The game kept up with my most frantic moves and my most mundane. Each screen shows the type of terrain along with detailed pictures of yours and the other provinces. The mini-map with its zoom button was useful during high stress times.
Europa Universalis II’s graphical quality is about the same as Crown of the North’s. This game allows higher resolutions so that more map area can be displayed at a time; this was the most important thing for me while reviewing this game.
Overall sound was not too impressive. After a few hours I put my own music on and listened to that while playing Crown of the North for a few more hours.
Europa Universalis II game sound was also not that impressive as the songs are so repetitive. So once again bring out your favorite fighting music to listen to while you strategize your way through this game.
Crown of the North is a game that also supports 3 differing multiplayer types. The first is LAN where you can either host or join a game. The second is called Valkyrienet where you meet other players to join their games or host a game. The third is the Internet, this is the trickiest to setup, as you must know each other’s IP addresses.
This game will provide many hours of entertainment. Europa Universalis II takes much longer to complete than Crown of the North due to the size and complexity found within this particular game.
The one factor that I love about this type of game is that you can either let the time lapse as normal (although I don’t think this is best) or you can speed it up a little so the unexpected can creep up and surprise you. I have been playing this game for many hours and expect to play for many more. If you like Age of Empires or Civilization then I would highly recommend purchasing Europa Universalis: Crown of the North.