You know, I’ve always enjoyed strategy games … both real time and turn based. I’ve always liked being able to build armies, conquer territories, and play the random chances of attacking or building diplomacy to further my personal gains or losses as a fictional leader. While most games I’ve played in the RTS market revolve around cutting trees down, hunting, etc while trying to demolish opponents … the recent titles that I’ve played from Strategy First instead take more of a political domination theme which turns out to work really well.

In their newest title, Europa Universalis: Crown of the North, the time is between 1275 and 1340. It’s a time where nobility and the church held all the power and Sweden was about to launch into civil war. This is where you come in to play as Norway, Sweden, or Denmark fighting for the kingdom and ultimately change the historical legacy of the time period, and one which hasn’t been explored much until now. You accomplish this through some means that are similar to other RTS titles available, but EU adds in its own style to make it stand out and offers something different.

EU has you selecting one of 6 different factions hailing from the three main countries up front (each with its own overall difficulty), and then sets you out on a world map to begin your quest for power. Rather than having miners or servants run around gathering and collecting, you will be focusing more on upgrading your marketplaces, recruiting troops, increasing trades, and a various assortment of other things which effect the loyalty of four different classes … the nobility, the church, the merchants, and the peasants. Each one has its own reasons why they should be kept happy, and sometimes you have to make quick decisions which may cause one or more groups to begin losing faith in you which costs not only money and possible status loss, but also a loss in Victory points. This is bad because while you can win by uniting the North under one king (which wasn’t actually done until the late 1380’s) the ultimate goal to EU is to be the person at the end of the time period with the most Victory points … and not necessarily the one who has demolished everyone else.

There are a various amount of ways to earn these Victory points, some of them being things like upgrading buildings, entering into military alliances, or eliminating an opponent. You can also lose these points very quickly by things like revolts or losing a province to an aggressor, and the tides can turn very quickly depending on some of the political, passive or aggressive choices that you make during your reign. For example, you might wind up cheating your merchants by reporting false income that will earn you some additional money to use, but it will also cause the loyalty of your merchants to drop which affects your trade income. You also have to pay attention to upgrading your buildings, which consist of a church, castle, and docks to name a few since upgrading one can affect the ability and upgrading of another and so on. This becomes increasingly important as the game progresses, since it will allow you to do things like get more income, build bigger armies or fleets to use at sea, and can drop prices in recruiting or upgrading buildings.

Politics with other leaders also plays a major role in the outcome and your success or failure at EU, and building alliances with some countries while overtaking others is important even early into the game. The more provinces you declare war on and overtake, the more money, Victory points, and grain you get. Building alliances with other neighboring countries is equally as important though since it will allow you to pass through their land to go after someone and can help you receive backup if attacked by another country. You do this by offering gifts or proposing marriages, but can also decide to be hostile or break alliances by insulting the leader of the country, breaking up a marriage, or by simply declaring war and marching in.

To add to the overall value of what you are getting here, Strategy First also released EU II a while back, and they were nice enough to add it into this game as well but with three new campaign settings. “Alternative Grand Campaign” which contains custom events and 2000 historical events, “Independent Europe” where you play as one of 230 city states in cut throat competition, and “Vinland” which allows you to play as Vikings in a world where their colonies survived in North America. This of course adds a lot of value to what you are getting here, since it’s two solid and fun games for the price of one, and even you folks who have played EU II have three new things to try out on an old favorite in addition to the all new Crown of the North. 

The graphics to EU aren’t bad at all, even if they are simple and there’s not a lot to them. The majority of the game will have you looking at a colorful world map dotted by trees, castles, churches, soldiers, ships, and some other things here and there in the landscape. The land battles consist of a soldier model walking across the map and then getting locked into a swinging duel until one side falls, while sea battles consist of ships getting next to each other lobbing cannonballs at each other until one retreats or there is a victor. As I stated, it’s not really a bad thing … there’s just not a lot to it. The sound in EU was done well in the effects department, and clicking on a marketplace will create a lot of shouting and talking like a large group of people, church bells when you click on a church, and so on. The voices of the soldiers were a little corny though, and could have been done a little better in my opinion.

Overall, there’s really not much of a reason that I would see an RTS fan not enjoying Europa Universalis: Crown of the North. It’s a fun and addictive title that will have you glued to the PC for hours at a time. It’s easy enough to get right into, but impossible to really master. Those of you who have to have a lot of action in your RTS titles may not have as much fun with the political aspect of the game, but it at least deserves checking out. Toss in the fact that you not only get the Crown of the North game, but also EU II with three new campaigns added and it is definitely worth the purchase price.

Gameplay: 8.9
Easy to pick up, hard to put down. There’s not a lot of harvesting or factional battles going on here, and this game really relies more on politics and succession than constant combat which may not be for everyone. The controls are easy to pick up and figure out, and difficulty can be adjusted according to what you are comfortable with. There are no set “turns” to do here, and everything runs at real time which can make all of your decisions that much more important as you go along.

Graphics: 8.0
Everything is very colorful and looks great, even if there’s not a lot to it. The different buildings, fields, etc. will move and turn to add some life to the map, and the combat scenes are simple but do what they need to do. For the type of game that Strategy First has done here, I really couldn’t think of much that could have been done to make it better.

Sound: 7.5
The sounds of the marketplaces and different areas that you can click on sounded great, but there is no background music playing (which was a shame considering the awesome music of EU II) and the soldiers all yelling things like “ATTACK” at the same time sounded a little corny to me personally.

Difficulty: Medium
While there is an adjustable difficulty to make the game a little easier, faster, slower, or more challenging, the AI will never just lay down and let you walk on it. They did a good job in giving you something to make you think and make good decisions, but not be too frustrating or difficult.

Concept: 8.8
Take some mild conquest and building elements from RTS titles and mix them into a historical and rich political strategy game and you get Europa Universalis: Crown of the North.

Multiplayer: 8.9
The multiplayer game can be played either on a LAN or by way of the internet. The really neat thing about playing online is of course you can make or break alliances with actual real players on the other end. As good as the AI is in this game, nothing compares to a human opponent.  

Overall: 8.8
Honestly, I really don’t have anything negative to say about Crown of the North. It will definitely provide many hours of addictive fun and entertainment, and getting both EU II and Crown of the North for one purchase price is well worth it. RTS fans that are action buffs may not be as hip on the politics side of the game, but it at least deserves a look and a trial before making the decision that it’s not for you.