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General discussion“One more turn” - A look back at Europa Universalis and other strategy games from Paradox(27 posts)(27 posts)
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Posted October 20, 2020
It’s easy to lose hours getting lost in your favorite games, but one genre that is infamous for its “one more turn” mentality that can lead to long nights of gaming is that of grand strategy titles.

These types of games usually have you leading a nation or civilization in a turn-based order where strategy and resource management skills are your most important assets. You use these skills to dominate your opponents either through military strength, cunning negotiations, or scientific advancements.

There are many fantastic grand strategy games available, but one studio that has been cranking out these types of games for decades is Paradox. And now, one of the studio’s flagship series, Europa Universalis, is celebrating its 20th anniversary.



Based on a board game that was released in 1993, Europa Universalis released in October 2000 to PCs around the world.

In Europa Universalis, you control one of seven European nations, starting in 1492 and ending in 1792. During that timeframe, you’ll expand your power and territory through diplomacy, military strength, and financial power. The game was a surprise success and was praised for its depth of strategy and for many of its historical accuracies.

It spawned several sequels full of different historical scenarios and settings that all provide unique gameplay experiences for gamers to enjoy.

Now, to help celebrate that game’s 20th anniversary, we thought it was the perfect time to look back at some other classic grand strategy titles from the publisher that brought Europa Universalis to life. Check them out below!

5 strategy titles from Paradox Interactive we recommend

Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Looking to take grand strategy to the stars? Age of Wonders: Planetfall gives you the chance to do just that. You pick from one of six interesting factions to explore and conquer a procedurally-generated world. Want to lead an all-female faction that rides dinosaurs into battle? Planetfall gives you the chance.

BATTLETECH - Another space epic, this time set in the MechWarriors universe, BATTLETECH combines classic pen-and-paper mechanics with modern PC gaming. You’ll get the chance to lead 30 different mechs into battle, using strategy, positioning, and brute force to take control in a galactic civil war.



Hearts of Iron - Let’s bring it closer to home for this one. Hearts of Iron is a grand strategy title that has you taking control of a nation during World War II. Leading your nation, you’ll need to decide between three factions to join - the Allies, the Axis, and the Comintern. Like other titles on this list, you’ll need to use strategy and cunning to come out on top.

Stellaris - Ok, back to space! Stellaris is a fantastic grand strategy title that really takes it to the next level in various ways. Between creating their own custom alien civilization with ideologies and rules and participating in epic space battles, Stellaris gives gamers almost endless ways to play. Don’t want to solve problems with war? Create a civilization that has different goals, ones that don’t require you to unleash battalions of fighters on other species.



Surviving Mars - Want to focus on building a prosperous colony? This city-builder title still offers plenty of strategy, as you’ll need to make the right decisions in order to ensure the survival of your Martian colony. You’ll partner with a sponsoring nation and that decision will also have some effect on how you manage your colony. Surviving Mars also adds a little bit of flavor by including some light story elements that trigger different events that you’ll need to overcome.

There you have it! Five strategy titles that will challenge your mind and your free time. If you want to join us in celebrating Europa Universalis’s 20th anniversary, any of the titles in this article will provide countless hours of entertainment!

What do you think? What are some of your favorite grand strategy titles? Let us know in the comments below!
Posted October 20, 2020
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Gudadantza: One more tick!

In fact the real time feeling is just an illusion. Europa Universalis is quantic in the sense of it consists in discreet tick series. :D
Day, month, season, year -- it's all the samish to me! Very deep below it's all quantums inside quantums indeed.

BTW, I read ~ year ago (on GoG?) Diablo was initially meant to be a TB game: [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(series)#cite_ref-22]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(series)#cite_ref-22[/url]
Luckily, we have Stoneshard & similar, ~ a generation later.
Posted October 21, 2020
Both Stellaris and Surviving Mars look interesting to me.

But the sheer volume of DLC's is, for me, a big turnoff.

I'll wait until some sort of "Gold" version of each is available.

(I don't know why lots of DLC's are a turnoff for me, but they always have been. Any sale where I see a listing of "same game, different DLC" hogging up many lines of the sale list, I just scroll past them all. Weird, maybe?> Don't know - but that's how it is.. :) :
Posted October 21, 2020
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Dalswyn: Ok... would anyone mind explaining to me how to beat the URL balises into submission?
No problem:
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Dalswyn: Well... One could argue that Batman and penguins, of one sort or another, already go hand in hand... ;)
The trick is to encode the parenthesis:
( → %28
) → %29
Post edited October 21, 2020 by vv221
Posted October 21, 2020
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Martek:
I'm the same about Stellaris but the "First Colony Edition" of Surviving Mars does seem to still be a complete version other than the purely cosmetic "Stellaris Dome Set" that was a "preorder exclusive" by the current game industry definition of "exclusive" that is something like "we won't sell it for a few months and when we do it won't be included in DLC packages that are supposed to include everything."

Surviving Mars has a couple of really good ideas that I haven't seen elsewhere that I hope other builder games will copy: the camera mode with different filters and effects and the radio with different stations with different types of music that you can set as you prefer. Unfortunately, the radio stations also have super annoying and sometimes obnoxious announcers and some of the music is rather obnoxious, but the idea is a good one at least. For my taste the game focuses too much on the challenge aspect (although once you figure out how it works it isn't that much of a challenge other than that you need to keep an eye on some things) and not enough on the building aspect. The domes are so small it is more of a puzzle putting them together than a builder. I prefer the relaxed Sim City/Banished style builders but I paid the current sale price a year and a half ago and don't regret the purchase even if it isn't one of my favorites.
Posted October 21, 2020
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Martek: Both Stellaris and Surviving Mars look interesting to me.

But the sheer volume of DLC's is, for me, a big turnoff.

I'll wait until some sort of "Gold" version of each is available.
Don't bother; aside from the First Colony Edition already mentioned, the base content for Surviving Mars is more than most people will play. It also doesn't have that much DLC and some of it is window dressing anyway. Play the game for a while, and if you're REALLY into it, buy a couple of DLCs.

I also disagree that it's not about building. You can link domes together so there's no real limit regardless of dome size. I understand that wasn't the case on release, but by the time I played it, it wasn't an issue.
Posted October 21, 2020
Europa Universalis doesn't have turns.
Seriously though, great series. Highly reccomend.
Posted October 21, 2020
I'll take the above advice into consideration. Thanks to both of you.
Posted October 21, 2020
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Martek: Both Stellaris and Surviving Mars look interesting to me.

But the sheer volume of DLC's is, for me, a big turnoff.
To be fair Stellaris too is more than playable and enjoyable with the base game only. I actually advise against buying any DLC until you’ve played at least a couple games.

The DLC are good (at least the ones I already bought), but the big ones add a lot of content so I think you benefit most from buying them one at a time, play a couple games to try all the new mechanics, and only then think about buying the next one in line… I’ve been playing Stellaris for a couple years, enjoying it a lot, but still am far to own all of the DLC.
Post edited October 22, 2020 by vv221
Posted October 21, 2020
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eric5h5: Don't bother; aside from the First Colony Edition already mentioned, the base content for Surviving Mars is more than most people will play. It also doesn't have that much DLC and some of it is window dressing anyway. Play the game for a while, and if you're REALLY into it, buy a couple of DLCs.

I also disagree that it's not about building. You can link domes together so there's no real limit regardless of dome size. I understand that wasn't the case on release, but by the time I played it, it wasn't an issue.
I disagree, there are penalties to using a nearby dome unless your sponsor is Brazil as I usually play, but that requires one of the DLC. Unless they added the penalties in that same DLC? In that case the base game might be ok, although I like the alternate graphics since even with all of them there are very few options.

I do have mixed feeling about the terraforming DLC that I think is the most expensive one purchased individually. It takes quite a while to do all the terraforming and while you can often use the faster speeds there is also a bunch of busy work that interrupts and is just not that fun. It is also a bit rediculous how little effort the terraforming takes from a realism perspective. I've only once actually played through to fully terraformed and the reward is minmal, just removing domes and one extra large area to build on not free building. So I could potentially see it being a better game in some ways without that DLC, although at least it adds some visual variety even if you don't play through to fully terraformed.
Posted October 21, 2020
I'm hoping they would bring more Crusader Kings titles to GOG
Posted October 21, 2020
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JeffGeorge: How can you have 'one more' turn when there are no turns in these games? Does the author not understand the concept of 'one more turn?'
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eric5h5: Battletech is turn-based. Age of Wonders is turn-based. I think strategy games in general are more likely to be turn-based (Civilization, the Endless series, Master of Orion, Master of Magic, etc.). While it might not be the most accurate title ever, it's objectively not accurate to say that "there are no turns in these games".
Both Battletech and Age of Wonders aren't developed by Paradox. The writer starts off with Paradox games and then forgets whether they are talking about developed or published titles.

I have heard Johan talk about "one more turn" and "immersion" BS countless times not to mention other phrases and words he doesn't know the meaning of. It's just marketing jargon to appeal to old-school strategy fans. It's not like they actually mean what they say. They used to have decent community manager and marketer but that was long time ago. But then again, they used to have decent developers and designers too.

It's really sad to see my former favourite developer to fall so low.
Posted November 06, 2020
Sorry for the late answer, guys, I've been away longer than I'd expected.

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Dalswyn: Ok... would anyone mind explaining to me how to beat the URL balises into submission?
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vv221: No problem:
avatar
Dalswyn: Well... One could argue that Batman and penguins, of one sort or another, already go hand in hand... ;)
avatar
vv221: The trick is to encode the parenthesis:
( → %28
) → %29
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_(film)]Comcheck, one, two...[/url]

Comcheck, one, two...

Edit: Cor blimey, it works! Thanks for the tip.

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joveian: I'd consider it, but I'm still sore that it took over a year after release to not have game breaking bugs every game I played. That is what early access is for. I really like the graphics and it is a nice game in a lot of ways, but I'm not going to support developers like that.
On the other hand, early versions of Europa Universalis 1-2 and of other Paradox games were woefully buggy. Supporting the devs worked in the long run. ;)
Post edited November 06, 2020 by Dalswyn
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General discussion“One more turn” - A look back at Europa Universalis and other strategy games from Paradox(27 posts)(27 posts)
(27 posts)