The year 1492 was quite significant in the history of the world. Spain finally united and expelled the last Moor stronghold from Spain while the intrepid explorer Christopher Columbus reached the new world in the Americas. The history of the entire world was now in a state of flux and would be Euro-centric for centuries to come. This is the setting for the latest real time strategy game from Paradox, EU 3.

EU 3 is a real time strategy game simulating the history of the entire planet from 1492 until 1793. Players can control any nation on Earth in an attempt to either recreate history or create their own history as the guiding light of the selected nation. In a series of scenarios players will take part in making decisions about production, government and war and peace for their selected nation. How these decisions will have an effect on history is played out as the years go by in the game.

Starting the game the first decision to be made is what era to select. The makeup of the various nations is different in each scenario, reflecting the changes in history. Some powers have advantages both in technology and in positioning over others, but any nation including native tribes can be selected. The game has the starting ruler's statistics listed and an estimation of the difficulties of the selected nation.

Once the nation is selected the next order of business is to decide on what techs to focus study on. These are on a series of sliders and can be balanced or one can be favored over others. If you want more government techs and new forms of ruling a nation you can focus on it or perhaps you want better troops or ships, these areas could be selected. New technologies take years to research but can add significant benefits for your nation.

Without research you cannot improve the provinces of your nation. The improvements will increase tax revenue, defenses, lower inflation as well as reducing revolt risk. Most nations in the early scenarios start with few or no improvements and a lot of research is needed to discover how to add these buildings. Most improvements can be built in all provinces but there are some bonus items. Certain industries can be constructed on regions that have the correct trade item to give research bonuses that really help research.

The game allows three great person advisors to assist your nation's development. These people appear at random within your nation's provinces and you have their exclusive rights for one year after which anyone can hire them. Each has a cost to hire and maintain and are rated in stars as to their effectiveness in the fields they represent. These include land tech which improves soldering, naval which allows for better ships as well as stability, increased colonists, merchants, missionaries and spies. Which people to hire depends on your style of play and who's available.

Colonization is handled by sending a colonist to an unoccupied province. Sending one costs a certain amount of money and a percentage is displayed of the chances of successful colonization. Nations generate a few colonists a year and this can be augmented with a colonization advisor but you can never have more than five colonists available to deploy at any one time. If colonization succeeds the province will change to your color and you will begin to receive money from it. How much cash you get depends on the colony size. To increase the size of a colony you have to send additional colonists and each time there is a risk they won't arrive but the risk lessons as the colony grows.

When the colony has 1,000 colonists it becomes a city and can now build city improvements and generate more cash. While still in the colonization phase there is a danger that natives will rise up and attack the colony. Each area has a rating of the amount of natives and a ferocity level of them. This can be offset two ways: the first being to keep an adequate military garrison in the colony and the other being to attack the natives and wipe them out. The advantage of wiping them out is no uprisings but the disadvantage is the initial city will not get the benefit of the savages becoming citizens.

Merchants are also generated over time and the same rule of only having five to deploy holds for them. Merchants are deployed at a cost to centers of trade and if they manage to get a foothold will generate cash each turn they are active. Merchants can be blocked if a trade embargo is placed on you by the owner of the center of trade and other nations will bump your merchants with their own to steal your trade. You have to keep sending out merchants to keep the money from them flowing.

Diplomats are also limited to five on hand at a time and have a cost to use. No diplomatic action can be taken without one and they too can have an advisor generate them more often. The diplomatic game has many options for players such as selling provinces, arranging royal weddings and proposing alliances. Diplomats are the only way to end wars you may be in on terms of your choosing.

Missionaries are the same as the others as there can only be a maximum of five and they also can be augmented by an advisor. As is suggested by their name their function is to convert provinces to your religion. Depending on the tolerance level of your nation you get better tax revenue and less chance of revolt from provinces with the same religion as the mother country. All colonies have the religion of the mother country when formed but random events can change the religion of areas. To convert the province you must send a missionary for a rather tidy sum and he will try to convert the area. If he fails a revolt will probably break out.

The final group is the spies. Like the others you can have five at a time and an advisor can generate them faster. Spies can pull off a number of dirty tricks in other nations at a cost in money and a chance of discovery. If you are caught it may lead to war or trade embargoes and other unpleasant things for your nation. But they can do damage to opponents and many missions have a good chance of working without being caught.

Combat in the game is handled by recruiting unit types into armies and navies and moving them to enemy provinces. Leaders can greatly increase the chance for victory and unit types will improve greatly as research progresses. Smaller more modern armies can often defeat larger and less well equipped forces. To capture a province you must defeat any defenders and then lay siege to it. This takes a few months depending on the fortifications. You can storm the walls for a quicker resolution but losses will be higher. Losses regenerate if you have available manpower. Colonies are much easier to capture - once the defending army is removed you can simply click on the capture button and the colony is yours.

The graphics on the game are probably the nicest Paradox has put into a game up to this point but there are problems. The largest problem is a growing one in the Paradox line of games - the habit of using extremely small print in the game, so small it's barely readable. There is no option to increase the size of the print so quite often you can't see what is going on unless you like to squint or sit one inch from your monitor. It was so bad I had to resort to a magnifying glass to read messages and descriptions. Making games so unfriendly to older eyes and people who don't see well is not a very good idea, especially as this is something that is an easy fix for the game designers.

Overall this is a decent game but not a very historical one. The design did away with set events in favor of random events so players could create alternate histories. Large areas of the map are hidden at first and players must have the right doctrine as well as explorers and conquistadors to uncover the hidden spots, but over time players will gain knowledge of them without effort. There is replay value here but the game is a bit too long as it runs from 1492 to 1793 and can be tedious at times. A good effort but not a great one.

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