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Europa Universalis: Crown of the North Review August 11, 2003 Brett Todd |
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Summary: Brett takes a look at the latest offering from Strategy First in the Europa Universalis. Even though it's a rehash of Europa Universalis with new scenarios and features, will it be enough of an effort to be another good strategy game? Put on your armor and flip up your visor and read on!
 Europa Universalis: Crown of the North | Page:: ( 1 / 8 ) |
New package, old game
Europa Universalis: Crown of the North is a pretty catchy title for what seems to be a standalone expansion pack. The moniker even seems accurate, in that gameplay focuses on the medieval war for supremacy in Northern Europe between the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. But all isn’t quite as it seems. Although Europa Universalis II is included here in its entirety, along with three bonus mod campaigns, Crown of the North is really a completely different game. It installs and loads separately from Europa Universalis II and was even released on its own in Europe under the name Svea Rike III. So if you’re looking for “Europa Universalis II Gold,” be aware that this isn’t it.
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Which is both good and bad. While it’s good that this isn’t yet another budget-minded repackaging of yesterday’s game with some fresh table scraps, developer Paradox and publisher Strategy First aren’t being entirely honest. Europa Universalis II fans might be surprised and disappointed that they’re getting a cut-rate game in the style of the original Europa Universalis, not a real expansion to that game’s much-improved successor. Newbies looking for their first exposure to the series might be better off hunting down a cheaper copy of the real deal, since they’re really not getting any significant extra content here. At any rate, the packaging is extremely misleading.
SIDEBAR: EU2: CotN Offical Website
| Documentation | Page:: ( 2 / 8 ) |
European history in PDF format
And there are other problems as well, most notably the absence of a paper manual for Europa Universalis II and a serious problem with the on-disc PDF version. The Adobe Acrobat document is next to useless, as whoever formatted the thing managed to excise all of the odd-numbered pages. Brilliant. Since the strategy epic is as deep as a doctoral thesis, it’s pretty much unplayable out of the box without a manual. Even if it was complete, a game that features four centuries of European history, complete with thousands of actual events and personages, needs more than a PDF manual.
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At least you do get a short paper booklet that goes over the basics of Crown of the North. This manual is actually an improvement over the documentation provided in the original Europa Universalis II, in that it goes into quite a bit of depth on this single campaign while the first book addressed only the generalities of play and glossed over specifics. Paradox has scrapped this approach here for tables detailing unit, recruitment, province, and terrain specs.
Random Fact: The manual for the original Europa Universalis was a great history primer. Unfortunately, it told us more about Suleiman the Great than how to play the damn game.
SIDEBAR: Recommended System Requirements:
Win 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium II 450Mhz
64MB RAM
2MB Video Memory
DirectX 8
| Objectives | Page:: ( 3 / 8 ) |
A Crusade? I’m there for ya, Pope Pius
This manual proved to be a real blessing for me because Crown of the North plays quite a bit differently than Europa Universalis. The tighter focus on a relatively small and isolated part of Europe makes for a distinct style of play that’s more directly based on a rock-paper-scissors system where you conquer provinces and construct and upgrade buildings in order to qualify for further upgrades, military units, etc. Developing provinces and keeping them rebellion-free is a juggling act where you have to balance the needs of the nobles, clergy, burghers, and peasants against one another. Virtually every decision that you make raises your profile with one group at the expense of your profile with another. Grant fiefs to the nobility at a provincial castle and you gain two points with the upper crust and lose one point with everybody else. Transform royal farms for the use of the common and you gain two point with the peasants and lose one with everyone else. Your response to dozens of random and historical events—such as starvation, treaty offers, plague, money counterfeiters, and even a comet that has everyone running scared—also influences the attitude of these groups.
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Of course, keeping everybody happy is really the primary goal of the game. Since this happiness is rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (nicely illustrated by icons representing stormy to sunny skies), it’s really easy to lose control for a bit and wind up with one or more groups hating you enough to foment rebellion and cut back on paying their taxes. The only way to keep on top of this is by careful decision-making and building construction. When the clergy gets upset, crank out the churches and respond favorably if the Pope calls for a Crusade. Don’t devalue the coinage if you want the burghers to stay smiling. Call for a Ting council meeting whenever the nobles seem antsy. Since each move placates one or two groups at the expense of others, you need to bounce around from month to month. Events often arise where you simply can’t win, meaning that you’re always scrambling. A regulation issue with merchants drops your approval rating with that group by four points no matter what response you choose, for instance.
SIDEBAR: Time slows down near a black hole; inside, it stops completely.
| Background | Page:: ( 4 / 8 ) |
The Duck of Death
Nations augment this sort of interaction in the same fashion. The struggles between Sweden, Norway, and Denmark between 1275 and 1340 are perfectly realized, as the factions have varying strengths and alliances that contrast and complement one another. King Erik Menved of Denmark begins in the strongest situation, with a strong army situated in the perfect geographic location. Enemy provinces nearby are rich and ripe for the picking. Norwegian King Haakon V may be slightly out of the loop in Trondheim, but his hilly, forested provinces are stable and easily fortified. In Sweden, King Birger sits uneasily on the throne due to a brewing civil war prompted by his younger brothers, Erik and Valdemar. Overall, you’ll have it easiest playing the Danes, experience slightly more difficulty as the Norwegians, and endure real hardships siding with the Swedes.
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You can also forego the rulers entirely and sign up with one of the rebel forces. The Swedish duchies home to Erik and Valdemar are available, as is the small territory controlled by Marshall Stig Andersson, a Danish nobleman recently fled to Norway after assassinating King Erik Klipping. These three groups add a lot of color to play, serving as wild cards that can change the course of any game. While none of them is equal to the royal factions, their assistance can turn a strong enemy into an unstoppable foe. This cranks up the importance of alliances to a level not seen even in Europa Universalis games, which were heavy on politics to begin with.
SIDEBAR: When King Haakon V of Norway died in 1319, his grandson Magnus united the crown of the north and became ruler over both Norway and Sweden. Boy, I’ll bet you’ll sleep better tonight knowing that.
| Gameplay and AI | Page:: ( 5 / 8 ) |
Juggling Swedes
Replay value is fairly strong, although you have to consider that there are just six playable sides and adjust your expectations accordingly. There are only so many ways to be successful here. For example, the Dukes have to ally themselves with Norway to have a chance of taking out Birger. Norway has to play a juggling act with the Swedes, helping the Dukes for a time but not letting them get so powerful that they will remove Birger and become a threat. And so on. The only really free choices can be made by Denmark and Stig Andersson. Denmark can take just about any path it wants. Playing it is similar to playing one of the powerhouses in Europa Universalis II, nations like England or Spain, without the grand scale of continent-wide conflict. Things are more wide open for Stig Andersson, who can be played a lot like Turkey in the later campaigns of Europa Universalis II because he doesn’t control much land and threats are all around him.
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Artificial intelligence isn’t very challenging no matter which side you take on, however. Enemy forces don’t react very well to your amassing a huge army right next door, nor do they defend smartly. Charge into enemy territory and your rival will almost always send its defending army into the province you just left. Sometimes this catches you with your pants down, but it still doesn’t make sense for the computer to abandon the defense of its territory like this. And this happens pretty much unfailingly, even against overwhelming odds. I’ve seen the computer respond to one of my offensives by sending a couple hundred basic infantry into one of my provinces fortified with over a hundred knights. The computer also doesn’t seem to build smartly. Fog of war hides some of this, though the computer provinces rarely seem built up properly by the time I arrive.
SIDEBAR: In medieval Europe, alchemists mixed powdered gold into drinks to "comfort sore limbs," one of the earliest references to arthritis.
| Value for Money | Page:: ( 6 / 8 ) |
Tightrope walking
Still, there is some challenge provided in the later stages. It isn’t easy to accumulate more victory points than your main rivals. Yet as well put together as Crown of the North is, as entertaining as it is to try and keep your nobles and peasants from killing one another (or worse yet, their king), it doesn’t provide enough gameplay to make the $30 pricetag justifiable. It’s hard to believe that this game is being sold on its own in Europe. Throwing in the complete Europa Universalis II makes the sticker somewhat more bearable, though it’s hard to count this as much of a bonus since most of the game’s fans already own the original. And then there’s that whole missing/screwed-up manual thing to consider.
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Perhaps more significant is the misleading marketing. Crown of the North looks and plays more like something designed for the original Europa Universalis than its successor. Most tellingly, the interface doesn’t feature a lot of the interface amenities introduced in the sequel, along with the ability to use resolutions higher than 800x600. Maybe this doesn’t make much difference in the end, as the core of the game is still the same historically rich grand strategy, but Strategy First clearly implies that Crown of the North is an expansion to Europa Universalis II. Some fans of the series will undoubtedly be disappointed that this really isn’t the case, no matter how the new game stands on its own.
SIDEBAR: I can’t play any of the Europa Universalis games without singing U2’s “Zooropa” at some point.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 7 / 8 ) |
Pros
Deep down
Strategic games don’t get any deeper, or embrace history as tightly, as this one
Cats in a sack
Tightening the focus on a smaller area provides an immediacy to play that isn’t readily apparent in the previous Europa Universalis games
Tre Kronor rules!
Put away all of your Ikea-addled stereotypes, because the medieval Swedes kicked ass
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Cons
What’s in a name?
This isn’t really an expansion to Europa Universalis, it’s a completely different game using the original engine
Manual dexterity
Not including a paper manual may make bottom-line sense, but it doesn’t help me conquer Oslo before Stig Andersson
We’re missing how many pages?
How the hell did Strategy First let this game out the door with a PDF manual missing every odd-numbered page?
Social security beckons
While Europa Universalis was never flashy, the engine is looking especially old and clunky these days in the wake of knockouts like Rise of Nations
Mod madness
Couldn’t someone at Paradox or Strategy First have taken an afternoon and gone over the grammatical problems in Crown of the North and the three user-made mods?
SIDEBAR: Stig Andersson is also the name of the Swedish music producer who put together ABBA in the early 1970s.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 8 / 8 ) |