Just wondered if anyone is playing this; hit the market in US/Canada today. Haven’t gotten mine yet, since Target (sole distributor of the Collector’s Edition) screwed up distribution, but maybe someone downloaded it from GamersGate or bought the regular version…
I actually keep looking at it. I never got around to getting the I and II, and I downloaded the Demo, But the crappy tutorials don’t actually tell enough to play the game with any clue what I going on. So I can’t decide if I like the game enough to get it.
I’ll probably end up buying it, but GOD the graphics are just butt-ugly. Would it have been so much to stick with the 2D sprites or invest in a decent designer? I mean, a pretty 3D map has been done before! It’s actually at the point where I stopped playing the demo because the map borders were making my eyes bleed.
Yay! 
My understanding is that the release version is pretty different than the demo.
There really aren’t any games comparable to these Paradox games.
As for the tutorials, the best way to learn to play these games is just to jump in and play. Sure, you’ll make tons of mistakes, run your country into the ground, and lose. But that gets you a feel for the interface. Then you can ask specific questions about things that confuse you at the paradox forums. There are some hard-core guys there who like nothing better than expounding on the games.
Are the graphics all that different between the two? It’s always been my understanding that the graphics engine is one of the first things built and rarely changes this late in development.
I preordered my copy a few days ago. I haven’t gotten it in the mail yet, but I’m hoping for it any day now. I can’t wait to play it. And like I’ve said before, Paradox’s customer service is what keeps me going back to them for games, other than the fact that they make fun games.
I’m looking forward to this. I’m mostly a Hearts of Iron guy, but I have had some fun with EUII in the past (especially colonizing the New World in the name of Spain from 1492 onwards). I love the fact you can start from any date- I’m hoping Paradox puts this feature in their future games as well. Viva Nueva España!
Unless things are massively different than the demo, I’m passing. Simply put, the graphisc are so incredibly ugly that I simply cannot play it. It’s that bad, and I still play SNES games. I have no idea why they chose to do it this way, since this is one game where 3D graphics add absolutely nothing.
Well, we (in the hard core EU world - see the forum!)'ve been complaining about the choice to go 3-D since it was made by Johan (the lead designer). But the basic response is hard to argue: if it wasn’t 3-D in this day and age, no one would buy it. And, frankly, the old 2-D graphics were both ugly AND behind the times then, so we’ll see.
To me, it’s the mechanics that matter. I know some of the beta testers, and they’be been happy, so I am hopeful.
The 2D graphics were somewhat ugly and extremely antiquated, yes, but I didn’t think you could make anything uglier. I should’ve had more faith in Paradox. I love their strategic games, but the interface just shreds my ability to get immersed in the history they’re trying to represent.
Hijack: You’re on that forum too? I browse it all the time, but never post. What’s your handle?
Same as here, but I’ve been relatively quiet for months; I gave up playing EU2 since about June. But browse old threads and you’ll see me plenty. 
(Especially in the MP forum…)
Sadly, my Intel 82915 chipset won’t work with EU3. Paradox is looking into the issue, which Intel claims has to do with software emulation of T&L hardware being ignored by the game, which checks only for the hardware version. At least, that’s the best current guess. 
I wouldn’t care about it being 3D… if it weren’t atrociously evil to my eyeballs. And the interface does suck. Seriously, they need to hire some artists.
I just wanted to say that Mr. Neville got me EU3 for my birthday (which was last Monday).
Mr Neville Rules! 
I’m liking the game pretty well so far. Though I miss the historical monarchs and historical events. I think my proudest moment in playing EU2 was avoiding the Time of Troubles as Russia, and later playing the happy liberal Russia (making Catherine the Great do something about the problems of the serfs, that kind of thing…)
The 3D is definitely better than it was in Two Thrones- in that game, I often couldn’t tell what was going on in each province because the 3D graphics were so bad.
Heretic!
It does take some getting used to, much more than EU2 did from EU1. I’m hoping some later patches will take care of some of the interface problems. The most annoying things to me are that it doesn’t save my zoom level and game speed in save games- I have to re-adjust them every time I load the game.
It should be noted: Consensus at the EU forums is that EUIII requires a serious, up to date graphics card (like at least a Geforce 6800) in order to run unchoppily.
-FrL-
Concensus is that the game’s Multiplayer is currently unplayable. <sigh> Not that it matters since I have the Intel integrated graphics that won’t run the game anyway.
[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
Though I miss the historical monarchs and historical events./QUOTE]
They don’t have any more historical events? That’s just lame. The historical events were what made the game interesting.
They have context dependent events now.
Thing is, once a player has sheparded a country through a century or so, the historical events don’t make sense any more. If your liberal economy is doing great it doesn’t make sense to hard code a peasant revolt just because in real life France maybe had a peasant revolt in 1603. Or some economic disaster befalling Spain when the player has avoided the policies that caused the real-life Spanish economy to collapse. Other things like hard-coded inheritances make no sense after a while. If you play Austria in EUII you know you’re going to inherit Burgundy, Hungary, Bohemia, all sorts of goodies. But this doesn’t make sense unless the historical circumstances that caused those events actually occur.
So there are historical events, but no events that simply fire on a particular date just because that happened on that date in real life. So Hungary might offer to become your vassal, but only if they’re losing a war with the Ottomans and your country is powerful enough to protect them. And so on.
I haven’t bought EUIII yet, but I will. I might wait until the first major patch is out. Paradox does an excellent job of cleaning up and balancing gameplay after release.
The screenshots I’ve seen don’t excite me. But who plays Paradox games for pretty pictures? It’s the depth of gameplay and replayability that makes their games great.
From what I’ve read I’ll really like the new event system. It worked great in Crusader Kings. I’ve never been a fan of the historical determinist events that some people prefer. Plausibility is more important to me than reproducibility.