Perfect concept, terrible execution

Waiting for the game
Europa Universalis has been creating considerable buzz on European gaming message boards and news pages. However, it entered the US market almost unnoticed, immediately placing among second-tier games with a starting price of $39.99. Automatically, I expected a typical European hit game - excellent concept but an abysmal interface. Considering the game was developed by Strategy First, responsible for such crimes on gaming as Clans, I was not sure about the concept either. And the second developer, Paradox Entertainment of the Heavy Gear III infamy did not help either. Infogrames, the publisher of this game, was the only reason I decided to give it a try.

Installation
When I got the game, I immediately noticed several things - a very poor box, design, very high hardware requirements and one of the worst game manuals I have ever read. The game manual is the first major problem of the game - it is hopelessly incomplete, poorly designed and lacking a index. It is written like a book without an outline, jumping from topic to topic. Moreover, the interface of the game is described in such a way that you'd get a Nobel Price to figure it out. Even though there are screenshots of the game, none of them has a legend where the interface is described. Instead, you read things like "the second button from the left on the third row from the top that looks like a small house is..." The second problem with the manual is that it does not mention some concepts of the game at all. For example, for sending out settlers, you'll have to pay. That is not mentioned in the manual. What's even more disturbing, those payments vary according to the production of the land you send the settlers to, its size and access to the sea. You will have to figure out all this while playing.

When installing the game, I have noticed one thing - most of the garbage it dumps into your computer are huge .avi (movie) files. In fact, these files are so big that a slower CD-ROM would not be able to keep up copying them onto your hard drive and you'll end up clicking "Retry" all the time. However, I have had no more serious problems with the installation.

The game
The concept of the game is one of the bast I have seen in a long time. It strongly resembles Imperialism II in real time, but I think this game deserves to be called real-time Civilization. In this game, you lead a nation through 300 years of European history. This history starts with the discovery of America in 1492 and ends with the Napoleonic wars in 1792. You will face enemies on several fronts - competing for naval and land dominance, blocking your trade by imposing monopolies or simply declaring war on you.

The game boasts one of the best diplomacy and trade engines I have ever seen. Your diplomatic relations with each country are represented on a scale from -200 to 200 points, and every single point will be hard earned. You will marry your children to children of other monarchs, find reasons to declare war or be dragged into one by a third party. Most importantly, however, you will find that relations with one country directly influence the relations with other countries, so striking a perfect peace will be impossible.

The whole game is in real time. While you can set the speed or even pause the game altogether, the real-time mode has two main advantages. In a single-player mode, the game is very intense, especially in later stages when you have to maintain an empire, fight on several fronts and keep up with technology advances. In multi-player mode, it eliminates the boredom of Civilization II where you had to wait forever for the others to finish their moves. In fact, the multi-player mode does not allow to pause the game.

The game features several scenarios, including my favorite 30-years War, the US War for Independence and more. Furthermore, each scenario can be adjusted in such tiny details that you can replay them over and over again.

So far so good, even with a disastrous manual the game would get at least four stars. However, there are some things I simply can't tolerate. To put it simply, this game was released way before it was due.

Graphics
The graphics are comparable with Lords of the Realm II or Imperialism II, both games being rather old. In fact, while the overall graphic presentation is acceptable, there are much fewer graphics than in both games previously mentioned. However, the graphics make the game look very busy and spoil the otherwise decent interface. The major problem with the graphics is that the units are simply too large, often so big that they take up half of the area of the colony they are in. Imagine having several colonies and numerous units in each one - clicking on the right unit or colony will be an almost impossible task, as other units will be in the way.

Hardware requirements
As I mentioned, the graphics are nothing spectacular, and in fact similar to games I played on a Pentium 100. Much to my surprise, the hardware requirements for this game are almost criminal (well, not exactly - but I'd love to execute the designers). The minimum requirements are a Pentium 200 with 64MB RAM and a 2MB video card, but even on my Pentium 450, 128MB RAM, 4MB video card the game took over 2 minutes to load! The fact that the loading bar said "Loading graphics" just added insult to the injury. Moreover, the minimum requirements of a 512kBps connection for multi-player games makes it almost impossible to play it over the Internet.

Game issues
On the game issues front, I am only sad that it does not feature a scenario editor. There are only 11 scenarios, and since a major portion of the game is discovering the lands around you, once you do so the next time you play that scenario will not be as exciting. Furthermore, even with the real-time mode, some of the longer scenarios can take several days to finish. I have spent around 60 hours of the Grand Campaign (the largest scenario) so far, and did not finish yet.

Final verdict
This game is a must for everybody crazy about European history. In fact, I would recommend using this game as an educational tool, due to its incredible complexity and accuracy. Even such small details as inflation are covered in this game. However, due to steep hardware requirements, problems with the interface and dull play, I cannot recommend the game to any other player. For these reasons, I have given the game two stars; if you are a history freak, double that number for yourself.