Is EUIII better than EUII?

[A Very Super Market]

I have tried Magna Mundi, and found myself turn Castille (Of all factions) into a one region monarchy based in Galicia. In the vanilla game, I did well enough with them, making myself a grand North African empire, but I had the maximum amount of war exhaustion in MM, as well as 5 loans, and a 5.9 inflation rate, and still couldn't maintain the forces needed to defend from Aragon and Portugal, who always seem to declare war a month into the main campaign.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, got the game today, and aside from some mind boggling frustration at how a game could *(*@&$ up a simple thing like tutorials, I found downloading a patch allowed me to actually use the tutorials, but with the problem of the (@&$(@$*@() game crashing to desktop whenever I try to open a second tutorial. Oh, joy.

I suppose I'll finish the tutorials and then wait till tomorrow before starting the actual game, so as to keep a lid on my vexation.

CR

[Xiahou]

Bah! Tutorials shmutorials.
Honestly, when I first installed the game, I couldn't play them either. I assumed that the expansions broke the tutorials since they were likely made with the vanilla version, so I gave up on them and moved onto the main game.

If they won't work for you, just jump in a game. You'll learn quickly enough.

[frogbeastegg]

Ignore the tutorials; they are useless. I played the entire set when I first got EUIII vanilla and they didn't help at all. The game has changed a lot since then, including interface changes and core gameplay mechanics. That's why they no longer work.

It's stunningly bad that the tutorials were broken without it being noticed during testing, and worse that AFAIK Paradox don't intend to fix them. Talk about poking your new players in the eye and trying to make yourself look bad.

[Meneldil]

There's a lot of talk about EU3 and Victoria (which I shall try in the near futur), but what about HoI2, EU:Rome and CK ?

From what I understood, HoI is quite interesting though really complex, and both CK and EU:Rome are highly frustrating.

Anyone confirms/denies ?

[frogbeastegg]

CK and EU: Rome are both games you should only get along with the expansions, and both are games which have a narrower appeal than the likes of EU.

I liked CK a lot when it first came out, until I spotted a bunch of gaping great holes in the historical fabric. That killed the atmosphere for me and made it frustrating. Around the same time I realised that the game was shallow, repetitive and limited. The expansion fixes some of the problems I had, and mods address others. It's no longer a game about coldly playing with stats and breeding programs, watching the Muslims sail off to conquer Iceland instead of protecting their homelands, and 70 year crusades in which large factions need to conquer tens of provinces per year in order to keep their piety from plumeting. Yet somehow the game fails to live up to its promise; it never quite manages to be fun, and it completely lacks the historical atmosphere and feeling of authenticity. It was just a game with ugly, inaccurate medieval window dressing and for some reason that annoyed me more than games like MTW and Stronghold.

If you like games about creating a dynasty, and which focus strongly on characters, then you will probably like CK. If you want diplomacy or any of those other layers of complexity from EU, nope.

EU: Rome I avoided on release. It was widely reported to be a dumbed down CK, and considering that I found CK to be shallow that was not a good sign. The expansion once again addressed a lot of players' concerns and many reported that the game, while still flawed, was now worth a go. By this point the base Rome game could be had for clearance prices so I decided to give it a try. I played it once and I have been meaning to go back for a second go for months. It wasn't bad. It just ... lacked anything which made me anxious to go back.

Not interested in WWII so I have never played the HoI series. They do get a lot of love, and a lot of people consider them to be the best Paradox series.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well I started off as England. Vanquished Scotland, and managed to avoid going to war with Burgundy by giving them military access. After a couple years I vassalized Scotland. Then I sent all my troops down to southwest France to defend, but they were getting beaten by the Gallic hordes. Got peace with France by giving up calais. At this point Brittany invaded, having already been at war. Beat them into submission and forced a vassalage.

Now France has declared war again and I don't know how to deal with the Gallic hordes.

CR