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For the low, low price of $20, you can rewrite history
Are there any history geeks in the house who are also strategy gamers who don't mind managing lots of numbers in real time to simulate medieval centuries around the world for hours at a time? Lemme hear you say, 'Aww yeah!' You know what time it is? It's time for another $20 add-on for Europa Universalis III! We're gonna party like it's 1399!
Granted, we're a small demographic, but we love our Paradox games and we're all pretty thrilled about the new In Nomine add-on for Europa Universalis III. This third game in the series has a more universal appeal than Europas Universalis I and II, partly because it's untethered from, well, actual history. EU3 is free to drift wherever the numbers take it. It's a topic of raging nerd debate whether this is a Good Thing or an Atrocity. In the picture above, taken from one of EU3's splash screens, the guys on the left represent the Good Thing camp. The guys on the right are the Atrocity camp. Note that the Good Thing camp is not only winning, but better dressed.
But there's no denying that EU3's free-floating come-what-may approach saps a lot of historical flavor. That's where In Nomine comes in. There's a whole mess of important new features here, such as the way rebellions work, the importance of navies, and how missionaries persuade the heathens. But when the quill meets the vellum, the real difference is in the new historical events, quests, and decisions tailored to each country. There more personality all around, and less of a sense of nations as blobs.
Is it worth the $20 Paradox is charging, on top of the $20 you had to spend for the last add-on that's required for In Nomine, on top of the $20 for the base game? That's between you and your $60. Personally, I'm disappointed Paradox has such a stuttering development process, with the release of a game just the beginning. The recent Europa Universalis: Rome is a perfect example. With another year of post-release support, likely including one or more $20 add-ons, it should be pretty awesome. But whatever your opinion of the economics of Paradox's game development, Europa Universalis III has at last arrived at the pretty awesome stage, even for the guys in the Atrocity camp.
For those of you still awake, you can get In Nomine here. For everyone else, here's a video of a dude in Halo getting pwned by an orange traffic cone.
By Rob Beschizza at 11:48 AM ON 05/30/08
Is that Craig Mullins art there? Lovely.
By Troy Goodfellow at 1:11 PM ON 05/30/08
Part of the problem, I think, is that Paradox has become stronger on small ideas than it is with holistic game design. So the idea that nations shouldn't have all these unique characteristics that they did in EU2 becomes entrenched early in the development process with little appreciation for how it plays out over a series of campaigns.
This is really evident in Rome, where the great idea that you should use characters as diplomats is completely unhinged because diplomacy is almost pointless. You declare war, you demand tribute, you make peace. Colonization of barbarian lands is nice little minigame whose simple mechanics lead to a Macedonian empire in Pommerania.
In Nomine follows in this line by being mostly fiddling with the small things. But, this time, things work out because they weren't afraid to throw out entire systems they had introduced in EU3.
Frankly, they should have made Napoleon's Ambition obsolete with this new expansion - letting people just install In Nomine over the core game.
Troy Goodfellow:
Part of the problem, I think, is that Paradox has become stronger on small ideas than it is with holistic game desi...More »