For the Glory

Any of the Paradox fans here intending to pick this one up?

Since the initial announcement I have been struggling to understand why I'd want to pay £14.95 for what's essentially a mod of an 8 year old game. According to the FAQ the game's selling points are as follows

Quote:

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- minimum requirement OS: Windows 2000, XP, Vista or windows 7;
300MHz CPU, 512Mb RAM (the OS alone may need more);
DirectX 8.0, 4Mb video card

- support all screen sizes, from 800x600 up to any size wide and 2400 pixels high (until WQUXGA for wide screens and QUXGA for standard screens)


- interface improvements

*
* five map modes, political map mode is playable ; cores are made visible or invisible by clicking the capital
* reworked top bar, information adjusts to the chosen resolution
* game helps (reducing learning step)
o reminders : little red flags as reminders and warnings (notifier) for the player (13)
o enhanced information windows
o much more tool-tips and many previouly existing reworked for more precise information
* more keyboard or mouse shorcuts (zoom: +/- or wheel, pause: F9)
* modern fonts, enhanced shields and flags (flags in million colors)
* new sprites (cities, units, buildings...)
* settings directly modifiable without reloading the game (language, font, style, music, mod)
* choice for resolution and between fullscreen and windowed mode
* modified and more user friendly ledger (direct access to a province by clicking the name)


- enhanced script engine

*
* no limitation to the number of actions in events
* trigger for actions and commands (define ai chance; discover the map; membership to hre, electors; set a good to a province; annex province; trigger on a tag; trigger isvassal, isoverlord; check the presence of a trading post or a colony in a province; etc.)


- new database engine allowing breaking almost all limits of the Europa Engine

*
* 2020 provinces, 1000 possible countries, unlimited number of cultures, religions, goods, terrains, technologies ...
* degree of historicity (Historical, normal, random)
* externalized values; makes easier to modify any parameter (almost nothing set in the executable, all variables have been extracted to be visible)
* more easily modable with the possibility to modify what exists but also add new elements on the same model
* different level in the datas (continent->region->area->province; christian->catholic->counter-reform)
* modifiable time frame


- game changes

* cores (national province, claim province, casus belli province)
* pirates and privateers (new leader) added
* rebels with full morale
* revolters changed in independant country get an army to defend themlselves
* specific land connections (through permanent terra incognita for example)
* other specific land connections that are blocked during winter
* conversion and colonisation chances computed at the end of the process
* reworked and added scenarios (more accurate setups, monarchs and leaders lists)
* reworked AI controlled countries behavior
* reworked manpower and supply/attrition models

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There's a demo.

I dabbled with the demo this morning. EUII's engine in high res actually looks very decent, and it's a blessing for the eyeballs to have the game running in the correct resolution for my LCD monitor. Text is a bit on the small side though. The map scrolls correctly too; I always used to have problems with hitches and tearing with the vanilla EUII map.

If there's one thing I learned from this demo it's that I have forgotten everything I used to know about how to play EUII! I went in search of a manual and found a 156 page long mammoth tome that one of the designers has written. It covers everything in exhausting detail and may actually be the most (only?) useful manual for a Paradox game thus far. A fast scan of it reveals that there's quite a bit of neat stuff in there.

The UI tweaks and changes appear to have helped a lot. It feels much more user friendly than I remember of EUII.

Music is all taken from EU3. No more Falalalan. :gring:

So it appears that the answer as to why anyone would want to buy an ultra-tweaked, modified and lightly modernised version of EUII is that it's an ultra-tweaked, modified and lightly modernised version of EUII.

I loved the Falalalan part.

The first time Falalalan started to play I nearly fell off my chair in shock.

A quick look at GtG's file structure on my hard drive shows it follows EUII's structure, so it's easy to change the music. Copy the MP3 into the game's music folder and add an entry for it in the .txt file.

This is currently £7.49 in the steam sale. Somewhat tempting.