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Live Blogs Europa Universalis; World Domination, or Survival Horror for Small Nations?
GameChainsaw2011-04-06 03:48:49

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Licking my wounds quickly from my ass end of an ass-kicking in Shogun II on legendary, I'm going to be doing a liveblog of a game I'm even more inept at; Europa Universalis, a game whose difficulty is based more on your position in the world than on the actual difficulty setting. Now you can go any concievable faction in the world in this game between 1399 and 1821, including the Incas, Aztecs, their neighbours and the tribes of north America, so I'm not going to be giving the full selection. That would take a full week of work to catalogue, and some of the nations frankly aren't viable (try surviving as the emirate of Granada, go on, just try. Though I have stopped their annihilation as England a few times by guaranteeing them right off the bat and then thrashing Spain in a war.)

Now, how this is going to work is this. We're first going to pick a starting date, then we'll go to faction select, and finally, I'll put up a few options as to how you want me to play; is my goal world domination (and, a very distant possibility of world conquest?) or should I play global peacekeeper, either for the selfish reason of keeping my enemies divided or to protect all the little states out there? Some nations may have specific aims in mind. England may wish to take the British Isles and keep them, maybe take its historic lands in France and perhaps even seize the French throne as seemed possible during the Hundred Years War. Any major European faction may try to unite Europe forcefully. The Golden Horde will want to conquer China again, or seize Europe. Byzantium will have no choice but to bring final battle to the Turks and Venetians, the Teutonic Order will wish to survive, but also continue to press east; now that Lithuania has been converted, perhaps the Order can redeem itself for its atrocities by being Europes shield against the Mongols and Turks? There are hundreds of faction specific goals.

A word of warning; while I will be playing on Normal, I've never actually got off Very Easy. Nonetheless I've generally been successful as a major faction and even achieved success as Byzantium. I've also never really been outside the early years of the game. So treat this like a rookies liveblog, albeit a rookie who has played a bit as some of the factions.

I'll be back once I have described the different factions.

One final thing to decide is how to present it. I might do it as a diary, either of the rulers or of their advisors. I might go down the route I ended up in Europa Barbarorum and make a rather tongue-in-cheek alien intervention via satellite cameras being granted to medieval China to explain away the Easy Communication. One thing this is not going to be is a dry After-Action Report, I had a score to settle with Shogun II and it has been thoroughly settled now... in Shogun I Is favour. :( So I will try to breathe some life into this one. (I'll also try to complete it this time without something horrific happening to the file. If I do choose to end it early it will be in a deliberate and final fashion.)

Be back soon.

Comments

IanExMachina Since: Dec, 1969
Apr 16th 2011 at 5:17:47 PM
Nice, I'm glad you started as a non western country/power!
GameChainsaw Since: Dec, 1969
Apr 17th 2011 at 6:15:05 PM
Given that my experiences of this game only extend to England, (boring) Byzantium, (rather hard) and Delhi, I'll take the one that isn't based on an island and whose hope doesn't rely on the Seljuks ignoring their navy for inexplicable reasons. (The only way to win as Byzantium is to trap the Seljuks on Asia Minor and then snatch their European provinces off them.)

I actually managed to unify India (just about, with Tibet as an add on to make up for things) on very easy... the infamy limit and war weariness is going to make things much more tricky on normal.

Speaking of which, I should probably get to work on this...
IanExMachina Since: Dec, 1969
Apr 18th 2011 at 4:45:47 PM
More tricky...Or more interesting!

From a watchers point of view definitely more interesting, seeing as you'll win and lose and provide a narrative for all.
IniquitusTheThird Since: Dec, 1969
Apr 18th 2011 at 6:02:19 PM
Oops. Sorry I missed the start of this thing, Game, things have gotten kinda crazy for me.

Regardless: do you actually fight on the battlefield a la Total War, or is it all autoresolved? Because this certainly seems rather bewildering.

Anyway, this means I'd better get back to my Moors. Goodness knows they've probably been erased by now. ^^;
Five_X Since: Dec, 1969
Apr 19th 2011 at 9:24:56 PM
You're using HTTT? Good. While Divine Wind is perfectly fine, it makes playing as Japan realistic, yet very, very hard. Unifying Japan is so stupidly annoying.
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