I had heard a lot of hype surrounding the EU franchise and decided to invest in this, the third instalment of the series. What had particularly impressed me was the claims from other reviewers that the game provided a similar experience to the total war format, but with much greater depth in terms of AI and economic and diplomatic interactions.

For me, although the changes mentioned above provided a worthy challenge, the combat system proved way too basic. With, if i remember correctly, three basic unit types upgradeable through the game, it quickly became apparent that progression would remain limited. Im sure other players did not find this to be as much of a problem as I did, based upon the good reviews, but I think that in a genre heavy with strong competition, EU3 lacks in too many areas to be considered worthy of investment.

This is simply put an amazing game. The engine is the secret, providing phenomenal depth control and attention to detail. The AI needs some improvements, but the expansions after the complete pack help this. A must buy, but be sure to by HTTT and Divine Wind!

EU3 is a great game, and this combination of its first three iterations is a solid buy. In fact, even with divine wind since released, this release without it still offers a game that feels up to date in all of the most important facets and most gamers without a desire to play as asian nations will not feel too shortchanged without the upgrades. By offering all the gameplay improvements provided in and up to In Nominee it does not offer the ideal EU experience though, and whoever purchases this should really look to add Heir to the Throne at least, as it makes a solid game so much better. That being said, this package can be a good entrance point into the EU series, which is very complex and not for everyone, and if one is looking at trying the game out before buying all of it one could very well play around with this edition first to make a good decision.

This game is one of the best games I have ever played. And I've played a lot of games. If you thought another game had replay value, you need to think again. You can sink hundreds of hours into this game (joyful hours, not bored hours) and never have the same experience--think about how different of a historical experience Japan and Naples had, for instance.

Beware - as others have mentioned there is not so much a steep learning curve as there is a learning wall. But this is fairly typical for Paradox's games (in fact, this is probably the most accessible of their games, so this game is very excellent for beginners of strategy games).

The key to this game is the pure openness and ability to do anything. In one of my recent playthrough's, I played as Trebizon (a faction located to the north of the Ottoman Empire that was called the Last Greek Empire) and decided to conquer all of Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, and most of Russia. It was glorious.

Have fun with this, and actually feel smart while you play a game. I now know a ridiculous amount of geography, and I have enormous respect for the amount of work that the developers put into the historical accuracy of this game.

p.s. You need the expansions! Heir to the Throne is amazing, and I'm just now downloading Divine Wind!

Brilliant game, and the Mac implementation is very good. I've played this on PC numerous times, and do not see any discernible difference in quality. The auto-patch feature is very nice as well.

This is a game that you can keep on playing YEARS after you have purchased it. Looking forward to version IV.

Europa Universalis 3 is a brilliant strategy game by Paradox that allows the user to play through hundreds of years of history, day by day. The attention to detail is the hallmark of the series, and what separates it from other strategy games. If you pick a certain date to start play, you can be confident that the rulers of the hundreds of other nations are accurate, as well as territory composition and other factors.

I will say, this is not an easy game to jump into. Be prepared to invest a good bit of time into the game before you feel comfortable with the interface. But, once you understand how to navigate, the whole world opens up to you.

Europa Universalis 3 is one the more recent efforts by Paradox's in-house studio to create a grand strategy game on a global scale, and in this reviewers opinion, the most successful, what with it being an improvement on all previous iterations, and the only one to come after it, Hearts of Iron 3, being an unfinished, buggy, cripplingly slow game.

For those unfamiliar with Paradox's work on these grand strategy games, a quick summary. For the past 10 years, paradox have been making grand strategy games that, between them, span the last 1000 years. The Crusader Kings series covers the period from 1066 to the late medieval period, more specifically, 1492. Europa Universalis covers 1492 to 1820, The Victoria Series focuses on the century of empire from 1820 to 1936, whilst the Hearts of Iron series covers world war 2 and beyond.

In Europa Universails 3, you can choose and starting point you like, right down to the day, and choose any nation that historically existed on that day - the classic example being choosing to play as England under Oliver Cromwell, and try to stop England reverting back to a monarchy. I should mention however, that while the historical accuracy is down to a T when you start this game, it is designed to divert from history. Whilst previous games in the series were designed to stay close to history with triggered events, this game removes all those, and history will simply go where you and the A.I. controlling the other nations feels like going.

Gameplay wise, this game is not quite real time, not quite turn based. You can pause the game at any time and set the speed the game moves, but once it is unpaused the days will pass by unheeded. In terms of the way the mechanics play out, each day could be considered a turn, but often you will want to move time on quickly, there are very few, if any, occasions where the game need be paused every day in order to mull over new developments, even during a war.

Every game in this series has a different emphasis. In Victoria, it's the economy and trade, in Crusader Kings, it's about lineages and dynasties. In Europa Universalis, it's about expansion and colonisation. What does this mean in real terms? It's easier to expand your nation in this game, either through colonisation or conquest. Net effect, this game is - on balance - easier to get into than the others in the series, as well as more fun.

Two words of warning however. Whilst this may be called the 'complete' version, there is actually another expansion out there, heir to the throne, and rumors of a possible fourth expansion. Having said that, the third expansion offers no new content per se, and is more of a glorified patch, although it does address some of the outstanding problems with the game.

The other warning is that if your biggest experience with grand strategy games is the Total War series, prepare to have your mind blown. Europa Universalis 3 makes it look like baby's first strategy game.