Europa Universalis III Chron App Reviews

I have had the program since it first came out a month ago on the App store. I made a few comments in regards to the newest version and lack of a manual. They have addressed the issues and solved them. Excellent job. Fantistic game!

Well, since my first review (and 3-star rating), the programmers at Virtual have updated with COMPLETE manuals... Thank you so much! They are very well-written, and sure seem to cover every facet of the game. However, as Id love to give this a 5-star rating, I believe the ONLY (found-and still lacking--see previous review) flaw to this game is the lack of more in-depth TUTORIALS. While it is certainly possible to "figure it out" using the relatively short, basic tutorials already provided with the game, I believe this games HUGE POTENTIAL can really be harnessed if new players can get up to speed more easily. Ive been a gamer on-and-off for nearly 30 years, and appreciate a game that begins with the assumption that ANY (new or experienced) player ought to be able to enjoy gameplay within a few hours after first opening the application. (see John Hammers excellent comments) I must emphasize: this concept is FANTASTIC. The folks at Virtual are SO close to having developed an amazing, history-based, truly challenging game & interface.

First, the bad news: This game is very likely not for casual players looking to play their first serious 4x strategy game. The xs here denote the four main themes of this kind of game, where the player might engage in one or more of the following: eXplore (the game world), eXpand (your game empire), eXploit (the fruits of your explorations), and eXterminate (your in-game rivals). Casual games like Bejewled 3 (which I also love), have only a relatively few "moving parts" making it easy for the player to divine what is required to find success in the game. EU3 Chronicles has so many more of those "moving parts" and - worse still for the novice - many of the moves are indirect and their long-term are effects difficult to discover. Add to this the fact that Paradox Interactive, the original developers of this title (Virtual Programming does the port to Mac), has a very active fan forum where their designers get many new gameplay ideas and implement them in patches even years after release of the game itself. Though admirable, this results in a game that deviates substantially from the documentation, making the extensive manuals far less useful for learning the game. The in-game tutorials help a little, but are also not enough to teach the game. All is not bleak, however. Tooltips abound to help the player. Tooltips are informative pop-ups triggered by hovering the mouse pointer over most of the features on the screen. Finally, most 4x strategy games (like Civ V) are turn-based, but EU3 Chronicles is real-time. Turns naturally stop the action, allowing players to work out their moves at their leisure. Players can (and will) pause EU3 Chronicles and the gamespeed is easily adjustable, but it does mean the player will not be able to micro-manage everything all the time. Now for the good news: For experienced 4x strategy gamers and for those willing to work through the extensive learning curve, this game has nearly boundless possibilties. The game is very open in that it doesnt make you try to conquer the world (a very difficult goal) or anything else. You win by meeting whatever goals you set for yourself, for example a player of England might try to make it the richest realm in the game. The player will have to watch over "national" things like recruiting chief advisors and whatever military forces you need, setting your budget, targeting technological advancements, dealing in diplomacy, colonizing new lands, and defending your national interests. The player will also spend time developing the various provinces which make up the the players empire. All of which does not take place in a vacuum. You will be interrupted by the world beyond your borders (and sometimes far beyond them). Wars, revolts, pirates, and various other events will make sure you have places to go and things to do. In conclusion: This game should appeal to players who want to spend many hours guiding their 15th - 19th century empires to greatness in a complex real-time strategy game.

I was a little reluctant to buy this game since I havent played much games in the past ten years. After playing for a few hours I remember my teen years when I used to play Europa Universalis 1 (and 2 later). The game has come a long way, but in a very positive way, this game is almost near perfection. What am I saying... it is perfection. The only thing I would caution people about is the learning curve, this has to be one of the most complex games in existence, which imo adds to the charm, I mean governing countries is not supposed to be easy. They also made the game in such a way that everything seems to come naturally to you, its really a masterpeice, a definit buy for anyone looking for a challenging game.

This is an extremely detailed and complex historical simulation of the difficulty of managing almost any historical country you can choose in the time period. The politics, technological development and the difficulties of running an Arabic Chinese, Japanese, The holy Roman Empire, or other country are unique to each country. There are so many possible games within the game to play that it will consume your interest if you can manage the complexity of the game. I love it.

Awesome game, great port, metaserver multiplayer works, but there not many people on it.

This is a must have if you are into Strategy games. It has a bit of a learning curve but once you get past that its a lot of fun. The latest expansions which this app includes have made the game beautiful as well as fun. The guys at Virtual Programming are top notch support techs, so if you haveany issues dont hesitate to contact them!

This is 100 stars for those who have played many stragety games and its not for "NEW" players because their is just too much micro-manage so a "NEW" player might not know how to handle this or might get ticked off because s/he might not know what they are doing. Now for those who are experienced if you like Civ and total war games might just rock your socks. Its very much like CIv in the sense of battles, managing, and advancements (technology) only difference is that it uses the whole world like Total War and that it goes in depth in managing. The difference with total war is the battles you actually dont command battles, but you have no limits to choose a country I mean you could even be China, Iraq, Mexico, Hati, and hundreds more. For Total war players if you are willing to give up the cammanded battles for extra managment I recommend to buy and play. You will be addicted for hours. For example, I started one day at 10pm and before I knew it it was 5am. Also for both Civ and Total war players its not a turn based game, but you can control how fast you want time to pass. For Total War players controlling time is like how we control time during battles. In a nutshell buy it if you like how battles are in Civ, managment in Total War, being able to go wherever in the world to colonize, and the "NO LIMITS" on what country to be go for it. BTW you have a little more than 400 years to play from 1399-somewhere in the early 1800, plus you can choose when to start your campain. For instance, You can choose before England colonized to colonize yourself or choose after England Colonized your in control. I NOW LOVE THIS GAME!!!

Really addicting game. I would suggest a way to delete saved game, though. Otherwise its perfect.

The game is great, but after a couple of hours of playing it tends to lock up the computer hard. The only thing that works is the mouse. I cant tab out, force close, nothing.

Too much animation, too much audio, too little speed of play. Civ 4/5 are much better. Maybe these games should have been left as board games. In any case, I tried them both, and Ill pass on both of them. Life is too short.

This game is a shining example of good strategy gaming. It is deep and you will spend some time understanding the mechanics (reading the manual helps a lot) but once you get a hold on of the mechanics, it is a breeze. Then it transforms itself into a game where you can spend half an hour, tweaking your empire and quit. If you are for the long haul, you can spend hours dwelving deep into micro-management and still have a lot of fun. The best thing about this game is how it differentiates itself from other strategy games by teaching you that war has a cost and you pay for it, whether you started it or you were the victim. It doesnt matter if you are the most powerful empire in the game world, if you wage war, you will pay for it…War weariness, Revolts, instability and less tax money. So you have to carefully deploy your strategy and micro manage both the economy and diplomacy to manage the effect of war. I love this game!

… the screen wont load correctly after I downloaded OS X Mountain Lion? Any confirmations on this problem?

When I was thinking about buying this game I was afraid that it would be too complex and too hard for me to manage. Ive played alot of strategy games like the Total War series Civ, and Age of Empires including many others. Another game that I bought recently "Hearts of Iron III" at that had so much depth and complexitiy I couldnt play it. That was my fear with this game. Now that doesnt mean that if you have never played a World Domination Strategy game you would definitly struggle with this. There are many manuals to help and I picked up the basics and was able to really start playing after about an hour. The game is alot of fun and I reccomend it to anyone who likes the Total War series or Civ because it is almost a splice between the two. It is alot of fun and worth the money.

But its tutorials are awful. Im not a gaming guru by any means, but Ive played many hours of AOE, Tropico 1,2,3, etc. and I just dont know what the hell Im doing here. Its a shame, and $20 down the toilet. I dont want to read through pages of a manual… I want a tutorial that introduces me to the basics of gameplay. Even with the "hints" this one gives, I cant figure it out. How about some arrows or zoom in or something. The game is too vast for 3 lines of text in the tutorial. Show me how the game works. A frustrated gamer.

Played it on Windows several years ago and now I can do it on my Mac!

This is an excellent game, that deserves five stars. But if you are a newcomer to strategy games then I would try to find something else like Civilization 5. When I first started playing this game I was very dissappionted, because they didnt give much in depth tutorials. Same with Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 3. Overall this game is quite amazing once you get used to it. I enjoy playing it, espesally when I play as lets say Castille and try to unite Spain. Or playing as Bavaria and unifying Germany.

This really is a great game and I had no troubles installing it but how can you re-install it because the initial window that allows you to change the mod is gone for me and I wanted to use Death and Taxes mod.

i know this game is fun but please put up death and taxes , please , and make eu3 on mac updates so we can keep updated thx

I love this game and it is one of the best strategy games around but can u please make it so that we can download the new version death and taxes thanks