November 12, 2001

Developer takes gamers on jaunt through history with Strategy First’s Europa Universalis II
By Michael Lafferty
 
“From the medieval battles of Jeanne D'Arc to the fantastic empires of the Incas to the flaming wars of Napoleon, Europa Universalis II invites you to take the seat as the ruler of a superpower for 400 epic years.”

Europa Universalis was an award-winning strategy game, from Strategy First, that took players on a civilization-building journey through history. What sets the second installation apart from some other games is incorporation of the colonizing might of Spain, the feudal warlords of medieval Japan when the samurai ruled as feudal lords, and even talking on the challenge of managing the small trading nation of Genoa. The game starts in 1419 and ends with the fall of Napoleon.

Features of the game include:
· 400 years of historic gameplay
· An intuitive interface
· Historically based technological advances
· Historical events where players can take part and/or control elements like the War of the Roses
· New units and new player nations
· An increase in the diplomacy, religion and political rules
· New sounds, musical score and graphical elements
 

Fredrik Malmberg, part of the EU dev team, took time to chat a bit with GameZone about EUII.

Question: There is a bevy of historical-based civ games, and, of late, historical economic civ games on the market. How will Europa Universalis distinguish itself from this pack? Does it bring anything new, technology-wise, to the gaming world?
 
Fredrik: “The historical facts are all authentic and massive! For instance, we have over 700 true, historic events and the events engine allows the player to choose between outcomes. Which in turn leads to new event chains etc.
 
“We also focused a lot on an AI that never ‘cheats.’ “
 
Q: The game is billed as an RTS on the Web site, but obviously it can't be played minute-by-minute. How is the time element handled? What about multiplayer games – is this program set up for the standard king of the hill battle, or does it incorporate the missions and strategies of the single-player game.
 
Fredrik: “You set your own time pace and can set the game to pause at any time or any given event so players can plan ahead. Same for multi-player games, you get a pre-selected time pause each hour of gaming to look over your finances etc. This is really working beautifully and has been well received by gamers who seemed to prefer turn-based games.”
 
Q: What presented the toughest challenge of bringing this program to life? What provided the most satisfying accomplishment when it was realized in the game?
 
Fredrik: “The toughest challenge was to handle the sheer massiveness. We’re talking 400 years of history with true leaders, monarchs, events, countries etc. It took years to research.
 
“The most satisfying aspect was when we got the code stable enough and had six players in a multiplayer game over our own matchmaking service, Valkyrienet. Awesome!”
 
Q: What aspect of this program do you like the most?
 
Fredrik: “The replayability! Since you can play any nation in the world, 200 of them, and the game spans such a long time you can play forever.”
 
Q: Can you give us some background information (as in education, gaming experience, how you got into the business, other titles you have worked on and games you like to play)?
 
Fredrik: “The team is obviously very diverse, but in general very interested in history. The Lead Programmer had completed seven or eight games prior to EU, we had several history majors involved in research, the management started in the board gaming business many, many years ago... I guess you can say all of us are old gamers. We all like board games as well as computer games – you know, Civ, Axis & Allies, that type.”
 
Q: When you begin to build a game, what is the biggest hurdle that must be overcome in order to get the project going?
 
Fredrik: “Financing. It always boils down to the fact that the game must be able to sell well for the publisher. It costs a lot of money to develop a computer game because of the amount of people and time it takes. Somebody has to foot the bill.”
 
Q: Where do you see this industry being in 5-10 years?
 
Fredrik: “More interactivity between live players, new platforms, better graphics and processor power, but the core, beneath all the fluff, will be still be a solid game.” 

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