How difficult is the game?

[Aragon]

Im thinking of buying the game, I loved civ2 and I love complexity, and im hoping this game is difficult even after you figure out the tricks and whatnot. So, uh, is EU difficult?

[Par4]

You know, your name is a province in spain in the game

Anyway it's not really that hard, don't read the manual and do the tutorial go to one of the FAQ's linked to on the offical forum, I'll post it here if you want, and read it them set aside about 5 hours to play as russia or spain or portugual or some easy country, not England, France, Austria, or a minor nation.

[Victor Galis]

France is very easy! The game says so and I proved it. In my first game of over ten years, I have nearly taken over the world. I would now play on a harder level, but I really don't have the time, and I still haven't finished this game, though the outcome is obvious. (No nation can pick up the 12,000 victory points that it would take to bring it close to me in ranking, so French victory is certain.)

[Par4]

Yeah yeah blah blah blah 2000 provinces, blah blah, austria surrounded by french, blah blah blah

[Grumbold]

One beauty of the game is that it does not attempt to create all the nations equally unless you play the fantasy scenario. In the Grand Campaign some like Spain, France and Turkey start as military and economic powers. Others like England and Portugal are much weaker and must tread carefully. If you master their strategies then read a short FAQ on how to edit the game and you can even begin as a one province state like Moldovia or Cyrenica and see if you can rise to pre-eminence. For a real challenge, how about Wallachia, which begins the game as a forced vassal of Turkey and likely to remain so unless you are very careful indeed? No matter how hard a challenge you set yourself, the biggest reward of EU is in playing it for fun rather than for ego tripping as you crush Europe under your boot.

The second issue is the competence of the opposition. The AI is still predictable and dumb in some places but Paradox are committed to closing those loopholes. Version 1.08 is due out tomorrow in fact, and aims to produce a markedly more economically competent AI, among many other things. No longer will bankruptcy be commonplace (despite its historical frequency.) The list of tweaks that players think are still needed will no doubt be forming by the day after and being discussed rationally with the programmers, playtesters and history buffs that frequent the forum.

[Depp]

Play as the knights of St John, and you will have a hard time. Play as Spain and it´s a walk in the park.

[Allemand]

Playing as Spain is relatively easy, but it will soon become clear that even large empires can only do so much. At some point, you will realize there are not enough resources to do everything you want to do.

The good thing is that Spain has America almost to itself in the early years.

[Allemand]

Playing any country can be a challenge if you set high goals. The built-in victory point system is not a good measure of performance, so a player has to set his own goals. Think Spain is easy? Try conquering all the minor countries while colonizing all of America. Then take provinces from every major power. The challenge will be to maintain peace in your empire.

[weird god]

the game is too easy even on very hard/agressive level - however sucessfully playing a minor nation or austria is still a challenge.

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god made weed.....you don´t really think he fails sometimes?

weird god, chief of EUROPA
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