You know, I’ve always
enjoyed strategy games … both real time and turn based. I’ve always liked being
able to build armies, conquer territories, and play the random chances of
attacking or building diplomacy to further my personal gains or losses as a
fictional leader. While most games I’ve played in the RTS market revolve around
cutting trees down, hunting, etc while trying to demolish opponents … the recent
titles that I’ve played from Strategy First instead take more of a political
domination theme which turns out to work really well.
In their newest title,
Europa Universalis: Crown of the North, the time is between 1275 and 1340. It’s
a time where nobility and the church held all the power and Sweden was about to
launch into civil war. This is where you come in to play as Norway, Sweden, or
Denmark fighting for the kingdom and ultimately change the historical legacy of
the time period, and one which hasn’t been explored much until now. You
accomplish this through some means that are similar to other RTS titles
available, but EU adds in its own style to make it stand out and offers
something different.
EU has you selecting one of
6 different factions hailing from the three main countries up front (each with
its own overall difficulty), and then sets you out on a world map to begin your
quest for power. Rather than having miners or servants run around gathering and
collecting, you will be focusing more on upgrading your marketplaces, recruiting
troops, increasing trades, and a various assortment of other things which effect
the loyalty of four different classes … the nobility, the church, the merchants,
and the peasants. Each one has its own reasons why they should be kept happy,
and sometimes you have to make quick decisions which may cause one or more
groups to begin losing faith in you which costs not only money and possible
status loss, but also a loss in Victory points. This is bad because while you
can win by uniting the North under one king (which wasn’t actually done until
the late 1380’s) the ultimate goal to EU is to be the person at the end of the
time period with the most Victory points … and not necessarily the one who has
demolished everyone else.
There are a various amount
of ways to earn these Victory points, some of them being things like upgrading
buildings, entering into military alliances, or eliminating an opponent. You can
also lose these points very quickly by things like revolts or losing a province
to an aggressor, and the tides can turn very quickly depending on some of the
political, passive or aggressive choices that you make during your reign. For
example, you might wind up cheating your merchants by reporting false income
that will earn you some additional money to use, but it will also cause the
loyalty of your merchants to drop which affects your trade income. You also have
to pay attention to upgrading your buildings, which consist of a church, castle,
and docks to name a few since upgrading one can affect the ability and upgrading
of another and so on. This becomes increasingly important as the game
progresses, since it will allow you to do things like get more income, build
bigger armies or fleets to use at sea, and can drop prices in recruiting or
upgrading buildings.
Politics with other leaders
also plays a major role in the outcome and your success or failure at EU, and
building alliances with some countries while overtaking others is important even
early into the game. The more provinces you declare war on and overtake, the
more money, Victory points, and grain you get. Building alliances with other
neighboring countries is equally as important though since it will allow you to
pass through their land to go after someone and can help you receive backup if
attacked by another country. You do this by offering gifts or proposing
marriages, but can also decide to be hostile or break alliances by insulting the
leader of the country, breaking up a marriage, or by simply declaring war and
marching in.
To add to the overall value
of what you are getting here, Strategy First also released EU II a while back,
and they were nice enough to add it into this game as well but with three new
campaign settings. “Alternative Grand Campaign” which contains custom events and
2000 historical events, “Independent Europe” where you play as one of 230 city
states in cut throat competition, and “Vinland” which allows you to play as
Vikings in a world where their colonies survived in North America. This of
course adds a lot of value to what you are getting here, since it’s two solid
and fun games for the price of one, and even you folks who have played EU II
have three new things to try out on an old favorite in addition to the all new
Crown of the North.
The graphics to EU aren’t
bad at all, even if they are simple and there’s not a lot to them. The majority
of the game will have you looking at a colorful world map dotted by trees,
castles, churches, soldiers, ships, and some other things here and there in the
landscape. The land battles consist of a soldier model walking across the map
and then getting locked into a swinging duel until one side falls, while sea
battles consist of ships getting next to each other lobbing cannonballs at each
other until one retreats or there is a victor. As I stated, it’s not really a
bad thing … there’s just not a lot to it. The sound in EU was done well in the
effects department, and clicking on a marketplace will create a lot of shouting
and talking like a large group of people, church bells when you click on a
church, and so on. The voices of the soldiers were a little corny though, and
could have been done a little better in my opinion.
Overall, there’s really not
much of a reason that I would see an RTS fan not enjoying Europa Universalis:
Crown of the North. It’s a fun and addictive title that will have you glued to
the PC for hours at a time. It’s easy enough to get right into, but impossible
to really master. Those of you who have to have a lot of action in your RTS
titles may not have as much fun with the political aspect of the game, but it at
least deserves checking out. Toss in the fact that you not only get the Crown of
the North game, but also EU II with three new campaigns added and it is
definitely worth the purchase price.
Gameplay: 8.9
Easy to pick up,
hard to put down. There’s not a lot of harvesting or factional battles going on
here, and this game really relies more on politics and succession than constant
combat which may not be for everyone. The controls are easy to pick up and
figure out, and difficulty can be adjusted according to what you are comfortable
with. There are no set “turns” to do here, and everything runs at real time
which can make all of your decisions that much more important as you go along.
Graphics: 8.0
Everything is
very colorful and looks great, even if there’s not a lot to it. The different
buildings, fields, etc. will move and turn to add some life to the map, and the
combat scenes are simple but do what they need to do. For the type of game that
Strategy First has done here, I really couldn’t think of much that could have
been done to make it better.
Sound: 7.5
The sounds of the
marketplaces and different areas that you can click on sounded great, but there
is no background music playing (which was a shame considering the awesome music
of EU II) and the soldiers all yelling things like “ATTACK” at the same time
sounded a little corny to me personally.
Difficulty: Medium
While there is an
adjustable difficulty to make the game a little easier, faster, slower, or more
challenging, the AI will never just lay down and let you walk on it. They did a
good job in giving you something to make you think and make good decisions, but
not be too frustrating or difficult.
Concept: 8.8
Take some mild
conquest and building elements from RTS titles and mix them into a historical
and rich political strategy game and you get Europa Universalis: Crown of the
North.
Multiplayer: 8.9
The multiplayer
game can be played either on a LAN or by way of the internet. The really neat
thing about playing online is of course you can make or break alliances with
actual real players on the other end. As good as the AI is in this game, nothing
compares to a human opponent.
Overall: 8.8
Honestly, I
really don’t have anything negative to say about Crown of the North. It will
definitely provide many hours of addictive fun and entertainment, and getting
both EU II and Crown of the North for one purchase price is well worth it. RTS
fans that are action buffs may not be as hip on the politics side of the game,
but it at least deserves a look and a trial before making the decision that it’s
not for you.
