''Europa Universalis II'' is a grand strategy game developed by

Paradox Development Studio Paradox Development Studio (PDS) is a Swedish video game developer founded in 1995. It is closely associated with its parent company and video game publisher, Paradox Interactive. It is best known for its grand strategy wargame series '' Europa ...

and published by

Strategy First Strategy First Inc. is a Canadian video game publisher based in Montreal. Founded in 1988 by Don McFatridge, Steve Wall and Dave Hill, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and was subsequently acquired by Silverstar Holdings in 2005. Initi ...

, based on world

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

spanning a timeline between 1419 through 1820. It was released on December 11, 2001.

Gameplay

In the game, the player controls a single nation across five centuries, managing its economy, military, political alliances, scientific development, exploration and colonization, religious affairs, and internal stability. In addition, yearly random events, as well as hundreds of pre-scripted ones based on the historical record, make for a great deal of gameplay challenge and variety. ''Europa Universalis II'' differs from many similar

turn-based In video and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of the two ways: real-time and turn-based. Real-time Real-time games have game time progress cont ...

strategy games in that time flows continuously during gameplay, rather than taking place in discrete turns. The player is able to pause the action to ponder the situation and give orders, then speed up or slow down time to let events take their course. The game ships with several historical scenarios, including games that take place during the

Age of Exploration The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafari ...

, the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolu ...

, and the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. The Grand Campaign lets players choose one world power and guide it from the end of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

and into the 19th century. There is also a Fantasy Scenario, starting in an unoccupied and unexplored earth with only 8 civilizations to choose. In this scenario, casual gameplay and strategy that should be applied are slightly different, more like a 4X game with a strong emphasis on colonization. While the Grand Campaign is geared primarily towards the major European powers of the time, such as

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, Sweden, and

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, the game is unique in that players can choose to play as one of more than a hundred obscure, no longer existing nations, from the Indian subcontinent to the Balkans.

Development

The game, based on the

Europa Engine Paradox Development Studio (PDS) is a Swedish video game developer founded in 1995. It is closely associated with its parent company and video game publisher, Paradox Interactive. It is best known for its grand strategy wargame series ''Europa ...

, was developed by

Paradox Interactive Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an indep ...

as a sequel to ''

Europa Universalis ''Europa Universalis'' is a grand strategy video game developed by Paradox Development Studio and published in 2000 by Strategy First. Development The game was originally based on a French board game of the same name by Philippe Thibaut tha ...

'', and was first released for the PC in 2001 by

, with a Macintosh port created by Virtual Programming and published by MacPlay. A

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

port was in development but was not released.

Asia chapters

A version of the game, called ''Europa Universalis II: Asia Chapters'', was released for Asian markets, adding new graphics and scenarios that center around

Asian history The history of Asia can be seen as the collective history of several distinct peripheral coastal regions such as East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe. See History of the Mid ...

instead. It featured an updated map with greater detail and added provinces in Japan,

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

, and China.

Reception

''Europa Universalis II'' was nominated for ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

''s 2002 "Strategy Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to '' Freedom Force''. ''Europa Universalis II'' received "generally favourable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.

References

External links