If you think Civ3 is rushed, try EU2

[Monoriu]

Just bought EU 2, or Europa Universalis 2.

Installed it, then immediately played Portugal. Saved game on day 1, then decided to take a look at the new African nations by re-starting the game and playing Benin.

Then I re-loaded the Portugal game. Hmm strange, still showing the Benin map and Portugal was no where to be found. Tried again, same thing. Not a good sign. Quit game, re-started, loaded Portugal game, there it was. Whew.

Ok. Found myself already at war with Fez. New nation, cool. But somehow my 20,000 army was sitting at Tangiers, a Fez province, and not besieging it? In EU 1 any army strong enough would automatically besiege the province if no enemy troops was present.....hmmm must be a new feature. Decided to move army to Fez capital, then changed my mind to move the army back to Tangiers. Hmmm wait a minute its now besieing the province.....same army. Maybe the game couldn't start with an army besigeing a province?

Then I fought a couple of battles with Fez. Finally occupied the entire nation and signed a peace treaty. There was a new feature to force vassalization with peace, great! I took Tangiers and left their capital, I couldn't annex it because of new "only annex capital if only province left rule". Fine no problem I would took it 5 years later when the treaty expired.

5 years later......clicked on diplomacy, tried "cancel vassalization" so that I could start war with Fez again..... clicked the button, nothing happened. Tried once again, nothing. Once more! Nothing. Visited EU 2 official forum. One of those known bugs. Tough luck. Couldn't cancel Fez vassalization meant I could never attack it. Unacceptable.

Re-started game as Portugal and reminded myself to not use the force vasselization feature this time. Everything same as last game, took first province Tangiers and started to besiege Fez capital. This time Fez was also at war with Morroco, another nation. Morroco also sent troops to besiege the Fez capital, side-by-side with my forces. No problem, I thought, I had the larger army and I had a general (in EU 1 whoever had the most senior officer in the besieging army would receive the province if it was taken). Took Fez capital......BUT WAIT A MINUTE, *I* took Tangiers province alone but now it reverted to Morroco??!?!?!?! The Morrocans never set a foot on Tangiers! Checked official forum.....another known bug......DUH.

Hmm. Another new feature was domestic policies. 8 sliders, great. Clicked on each one of them to see what they did. Clicked on "navy", said it land troops morale would do down if I moved toward "navy" and naval troops morale would go up. Made sense. Clicked on "land", said naval troops morale would go down if I chose this option, but land troops morale would also go down?!?!?! Textual error most probably.....

ok. calm down. Figured I would play with exploration a bit. Just got 1st explorer.....sent him toward South America. I clicked on him while he was on his way to check attrition, then first thing I noticed was my hard-drive making some funny noises.....then the cursor switched back into the Windows default white arrow....then I was back to Windows desktop.

The above was the summary of my experience with EU 2 in the first 3 hours of the game.

Civ 3 has bugs when it was first released. It still has some after the first patch. But the civ 3 "rush factor" is pretty low when compared with other games. Not saying it can't do better, but it really isn't that bad.

[yin26]

First, sorry to hear about those EU2 probs. Any chance you had some kind of strange install problems? Sounds like there is a problem with the save location. Anyway ...

The big difference, of course, is that when EU2 is 'finished' and when Civ3 is 'finished,' EU2 will still be the far deeper game made by a group of guys with far more interest in making its fans happy.

So if you had to stick it out with only one of those games, EU2 is by far the better bet. Of course, you can stick it out with both games. Why not? Then again, my version of 'stick it out' means returning or not buying the games until they are finished to begin with...

[BigNick]

Re: If you think Civ3 is rushed, try EU2

Originally posted by Monoriu

If you think Civ3 is rushed, try EU2

Ah, crap. That's another one I was looking forward to. You know who I blame this on? People. Gods, I'm starting to hate people.

Civ 3 has bugs when it was first released. It still has some after the first patch. But the civ 3 "rush factor" is pretty low when compared with other games.

Yeah, that's true, but it's still far too high compared to some of the other things I could buy with my $110 (or, at last view, $70). CDs. DVDs. A month's Foxtel. A new pair of batting gloves. Part of a new fridge. That sort of thing.

Sure, there have been some highly-publicised (and highly-rated) crap that's come out over the last few months. Black & White. Pool of Radiance II. Any Everquest release you care to name. Unfortunately, they were just too buggy for release.

So what does this mean? Not a lot. It means that developers and publishers will keep pushing buttons regarding buggy software and patches until people stop buying their games. I'm at that stage. I didn't buy POR II at its release because of the bugs, and now that it's calmed down a bit I don't feel an overwhelming urge to buy it at all. One sale lost. Just one, but how many times did they lose a single sale because of the bugs?

I'm not going to buy MoO3 because I'm still annoyed at Infogrames. I was going to grab EU2 at release, but now I won't - I'll wait to see if it's patched, how good the patch is and whether it's worth getting at the end of it. Civ3 may be the last game I buy without waiting. Hell, I'm 26 - I'm old enough to be allowed to be crotchetty.

Patches are a fact of life, but they're one I try to do without. I don't see them as a valid alternative to releasing a working game. If a game is too buggy, then as far as I'm concerned it's in the same category as a scratched CD or a lemon car. Sure, I can get a fix, but that should be priced in and to pick something up before then is just allowing yourself to be played for a sucker.

EDIT: Yes, OK - it's hard to find a new fridge with fewer defects than Civ3 for $70. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by yin26
First, sorry to hear about those EU2 probs. Any chance you had some kind of strange install problems? Sounds like there is a problem with the save location. Anyway ...

The big difference, of course, is that when EU2 is 'finished' and when Civ3 is 'finished,' EU2 will still be the far deeper game made by a group of guys with far more interest in making its fans happy.

So if you had to stick it out with only one of those games, EU2 is by far the better bet. Of course, you can stick it out with both games. Why not? Then again, my version of 'stick it out' means returning or not buying the games until they are finished to begin with...

Nope, no installation problems. The "load game bug" I mentioned is another known bug experienced by all.

I have great confidence that both games will occupy my most favourite game #1 and #2 spots for a long time after being patched. But what I have to say is....when I compare my first 3 hours playing civ 3 (no serious bugs) and my first 3 hours playing EU 2 (see above), I have to say civ 3 does a much better job when it comes to killing bugs before release.

[yin26]

You mean, of course, as long as you don't play on an XP machine or with certain video cards? Anyway, this is why my 'Games purchased as soon as they are released' number has dropped to zero. In the case of Civ3, I was able to try it out before buying it ... and even the free test made me feel cheated! (<--joke, since some many people here are joke-impaired)

[korn469]

i hadn't ever played EU before but i opened EU2 last week and played it twice (about 10 hours of study time lost) resumed a save game with no apparent problems i haven't played it enough to give a real comparison to civ3 yet, but civ3 and EU are both free of HUGE bugs, both are fun, EU2 seems less tedious (the hours disappeared without me noticing at all) civ3 seems to have a couple over on EU2, but EU2 is quite addictive so far more addictive than Civ3 was for me

[kimmygibler]

Here is my theory: Anyone can download any game they want for free, and game companies can't really stop it. So what they do is make the initial release very bad, then when the patch comes out with its copy protections all the game thiefs are screwed.

Is this true? Have heard that many games/cracks will not work if you install the patch. Or at least you must redownload the game or something. Mabye this is to discourage thieves since it would take a long time to download one of these new realease games.

[yin26]

Well, the new cracks come out within days of a patch, so that's not an effective route to take.

[ravagon]

1.02 for EU2 is supposedly due out soon. - Should fix many of the glitches.
Judging from the level of acceptance from the regulars on Paradox' forum EU2 should be much more usable than civ3, and much sooner.

[BigNick]

Originally posted by ravagon
Judging from the level of acceptance from the regulars on Paradox' forum EU2 should be much more usable than civ3, and much sooner.

Quick question - I'm not sufficiently fascinated to check Paradox' fora myself.

How much of that acceptance is due to lower expectations - players who weren't expecting something to be the be-all and end-all of TBS, and aren't disappointed by not being able to play the game the same way they had previously?

[yin26]

The EU folks are some of the most hardcore strategy types you are likely to find. And, in fact, a number of them are rather upset that EU2 is 'just EU with a few new features.' They also typically make the comment that the AI took one step forward and two steps back in EU2, though this is being addressed.

So, same problems but one big difference: The developer actually works alongside the fans in an open and public way to address issues of concern. And information is kept up-to-date and clear on the official site. Thus, even if you ultimately don't like EU2, you'll know that it's not because various issues are being ignored.

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by BigNick


Quick question - I'm not sufficiently fascinated to check Paradox' fora myself.

How much of that acceptance is due to lower expectations - players who weren't expecting something to be the be-all and end-all of TBS, and aren't disappointed by not being able to play the game the same way they had previously?

EU 2 was released about a year after the release of EU 1.

The two games are VERY similar. So similar, that some people actually call it a patch. That is too much, an add-on would be closer to reality. It looks the same, not similar, but SAME graphics. Basic game mechanism and interface are the same. The only new stuff are new nations, 100 more years of play, more provinces, some new options and features here and there, and a supposedly better AI.

Suffice to say, if you love EU1, you'll love EU2, because its really an improvement on the same thing. They didn't make ANY significant changes at all.

In civ terms, that will be like releaseing civ 3 a year after civ 2, with the same engine and graphics, but with more city imporvements, more techs, more units, a new age into the future, more diplomatic options, better AI, etc.

That's why I like civ 3 more than EU 2.

[horgel]

They didn't make ANY significant changes at all.

(Sounds like you have just take at look at game, rather than playing it...)

At first i must admit that i love EU (and also love the civ series), so i don't want to bore you with praises about how good EU is. But some things should be taken into context here:

Yes, EU2 is less than a complete new game but it is significantly more than an Add-on, as it provides it's player with new gaming experiences.

Looking at the new features from Civ3 to Civ2 and EU1 to EU2 one must admit that EU2 is at least as inventive as Civ3 compared to their precedessors.
But in one case there has one year passed and in the second one there have been SEVEN years gone by. Seven years of new develpoments in gaming. While there is no comaprable game to EU, Firaxis could have taken a look at some other similiar product like their AC or Activisions CTP to get some more ideas.
Therfore, even so i think that Civ3 is actual the best Civ game, i've grown really disapointed about it after just one week playing, put it on the shelf, bought EU2 and played till now with great enjoyment.

EU is NOT a civ game, it's historical simulation, which gives it's players full freedom of decision ingrained in the worlds history form 1419 to 1819. Therfore it simulates 180(!) countries, all with their own historical profile, leaders, events, borders, policy. Most of them are playable by human players, who are free to give the history another direction...

So EU is a good alternative for Civ players like me, who are disapointed by the missing historical aspects of Civ3.

Eu isn't rushed, all promised features are available.
It has gone through a big public beta test, and the developers realized many proposals of the very active EU-Community
Although playing EU2 is big fun by now it still needs (and will get) some tweaks.
Regarding the goal of a realistic simulation of 180 countries over a period of 400 years, this fact is acceptable, I think.
Why are the germans called the germans in civ3? Hey, they can build a tank! Wow, that's really characteristic for a whole history of a nation.
A nation played by the computer in Civ3 will never act or develope similar to it's spit image in the reality.
EU2 tries this, and while it's not perfect, it certainly does a good job. In CIV3 a nation is not much more than a just a name.

All people who complain about starting positions and all people who want to play a game more tied to the historical context should take more than one look at EU2.

Otherwise play CIV3, (sadly (somewhat)) it is the best CIV-game we can buy at the moment.

[Grumbold]

EU2 seems to have enough defenders, so I won't echo. The critical difference IMO is that the Paradox staff are willing to spend hours on the website discussing the game with the fans and releasing frequent patches to fix perceived problems. With the historically minded pedants enthralled by the game this even includes the names of certain minor-nation provinces, leaders, capitals etc. The sort of fluff that most would hardly notice. Firaxis on the other hand seem to have signed a 'wont bark unless you say we can' deal with Infogrames so we exist in a knowledge vacuum when it comes to potential future improvements, even such important ones as multiplayer. Additionally, the Paradox files -even saves- are deliberately readable ascii text to encourage modification.

[St Leo]

Suffice to say, if you love EU1, you'll love EU2, because its really an improvement on the same thing. They didn't make ANY significant changes at all.

Could you please define significant? I find that social engineering, trade agreements, and lots of other little things make for a much more fun game.