Europa Universalis III: In Nomine

June 13, 2008 - The Europa Universalis games have always embraced a level of organization and open-ended gameplay that is, without a doubt, a rare and acquired taste. Controlling the political, economic, religious, military, and technological direction of an entire nation over hundreds of years of real history is no easy task, and while things have been streamlined a bit as the series has evolved, it's still a daunting task. When developing expansions, Paradox Interactive has to walk a fine line between introducing new features that complicate the situation and smoothing out some of the micromanagement that bogs players down.

The latest expansion, In Nomine, succeeds quite well. It offers some substantial changes to the core game that tend to limit the momentum of wars and colonial expansion. More vigorous rebels make war exhaustion and distant armies tough to handle, while new colony rules encourage the growth of substantial fleets while also reducing the micromanagement required to maintain them. Mission and decision options give the game a much more focused feel that shifts the game out of the sandbox and into a more historical setting.
Though there are plenty of big additions here, nothing comes close to the new rebel system in terms of how it affects gameplay. Rebels show up much more often now and they're harder to root out in many cases. What makes them such a compelling new element is that the rebels have their own unique objectives and can behave like sovereign nations.
Each rebel group that appears comes with a specific agenda. Some might want to break free and join another empire, others, particularly towards the end of the game, might want to establish their own country. Some rebels just want tax relief, or religious reform. How you handle each type of rebel depends on what they want. Naturally, you can just march in and crush them with your armies, but these new rebels typically have high morale and, in too many cases, unrealistically powerful generals.

When the war exhaustion starts to take its toll on your national morale (and increases the number of rebellions you experience), you might be better off trying to negotiate with the rebels. This is an entirely new option and it's one that you'll seriously need to consider. Unfortunately, some of the rebels actually want you to cede entire regions for them to live in as sovereign nations. But even those rebels who merely want a little tax relief will still cost you a tremendous amount of prestige and bump your centralization slider a bit towards the less appealing end. You'll want to be careful how you spend your prestige though, because it has much more of an effect on your overall morale, stability and income.
There are lots more pirates as well and they can significantly impact your trade and colonies. This means that players who want to have substantial overseas empires will really have to work hard to build up a large enough fleet to discourage piracy. To make things easy, you can actually toggle a patrol order on each of your fleets to reduce the risk of pirates appearing nearby. The patrol option isn't good if there are enemy fleets nearby though, so you'll need to balance the needs of trade and colonial security with your overall war aims. Best of all, Paradox has removed the attrition that friendly fleets suffer in friendly waters close to home, so you're not going to have to keep refitting your fleets every year.

Players will notice that they don't get as many colonists now, but they won't have to send them again and again just to establish a colony. Now individual colonists will slowly create their own cities at a speed based on your new colonial maintenance slider. This definitely reduces the micromanagement required to get overseas possessions up and running. Colonies don't produce tax or production for home empires anymore. This time around, they generate tariffs that make their way across the sea to the home empire. Without a strong fleet patrolling the waters between the colony and the capital, the tariffs are likely to be seized by pirates. Another interesting change is that you won't know what trade goods a province produces until you actually colonize it. This might aggravate some players who wind up losing out on some good commodities but it's a great way to prevent players from exploiting the map and only grabbing colonies that produce the most appealing goods.

Unfortunately, Spain and Portugal's early access to the Quest for the New World and the location of the Azores still gives those countries a significant advantage in colonizing the Americas. Still, focused players can definitely compete with them leading one of the other colonizing powers. Even if your rivals have grabbed lots of territory near your colonies, there's a much easier system now to convert other provinces to your own culture. It makes things a bit more secure for you, but it can also work against you if your rivals start to actively try to assimilate your own provinces.
Missionaries have also changed to work more like the new colonists now. Instead of just sending single missionaries off for a one-time bump, you'll now station missionaries permanently in a province and then adjust a new maintenance slider to determine how well they're funded. The missionaries will stay in place until they've converted the province to your faith but you'll be running an increased revolt risk in any province that you've stationed a missionary. Since this is all proportionate to the level of missionary maintenance, you can adapt to changing situations relatively quickly, while also ensuring that your missionaries are making steady progress towards converting provinces to your faith.
There are a few other notable changes to the religion system. First, there's no stability hit now for going to war with nations of different faiths. This makes holy wars a much more common event. The Pope can also excommunicate Catholic rulers now, so there's no guarantee that you'll stay at peace with your Catholic neighbors. There are also no longer individual sliders for tolerance, so you'll just relate to different faiths in large groups and fine tune your acceptance with a number of national ideas.

Beyond the basic complexities of the mechanics, some players have been turned off of the Europa Universalis series simply because there are no scripted goals. While In Nomine still allows players to define and pursue their own agenda while playing, it also includes new missions and decisions that can give players specific objective that come with their own rewards. The missions are generated randomly but seem to fit whatever the circumstances you're in at the time. The appearance of nearby pirates, for instance, might trigger a mission to boost your navy. A small handful of the missions for the bigger powers have a more specific flavor that help to drive that nation in the general direction that they historically went. While the missions are interesting and offer some nice small rewards, players are completely free to ignore them and go after alternate goals. The only problem is that it costs 5 prestige to cancel a mission outright, which is the only way you can sidestep a mission you don't want to achieve.

Decisions are a little different. These are big policy choices that you'll be asked to make, at either the national or province level. The national decisions include big things like your overall religious tolerance, or the creation of a larger political empire. The province decisions are much more local offering, for instance, the chance to improve shipbuilding or commerce in a particular area. When you're running a more important nation, you'll find that the decisions take some of the randomness and guesswork out of the original game's historical events. Now, instead of waiting until you reach the conditions required to launch the Spanish Inquisition, you can just check your decision tab to see what pre-requisites you have to fill. Even when you get things in line, you'll still have the option to hold off launching a decision until it's most advantageous to you. It gives you so much more control over your empire.

There are plenty of other changes and additions to the game, from new tech levels and playable nations, to new advisor types and national ideas. The economic models in the game have also been changed with new supply and demand rules and improved trading options. When fighting, players can use a scorched earth policy when their own armies retreat within their borders, or detach armies that are besieging enemy towns. The best thing about the new expansion is that armies on the march will maintain their current progress if a change in orders takes them through the same province.
In Nomine does away with all the stability hits for slider adjustments, which means you can be a lot more flexible in terms of how your nation adapts to changing circumstances. Of course, the amount of time you have to wait between changing sliders is going to be limited by the size of your empire and your current government. That makes it actually more enjoyable to play some of the minor nations in the game because you can be a bit more flexible.



Closing CommentsThere are plenty of worthwhile features in In Nomine and they definitely help to add a bit more focus and fun to the whole experience. While the new rebels are an undeniable pain to deal with, their presence helps to limit the outrageous imperial ambitions of the bigger players. I think they're still a bit too strong but they serve as a nice check. New colony rules reduce micromanagement while also giving players a compelling reason to protect the seas. The missions are a really nice touch, but they're more fun (and varied) when playing as one of the larger powers in the game. In Nomine's definitely a good buy for any fan of the original game, and while the streamlining is nice, it's still not quite enough to make the game appealing to everyone.




8.0
PresentationNicely streamlined in some key areas but the rebels are a bit unbalanced.
7.0
GraphicsNot much more exciting than the original. Would be great to differentiate between rebel types.
6.0
SoundGood music overall but the sound effects are still weak and uninspired.
8.5
GameplayGreat new gameplay additions that make the game more sophisticated without making it more complicated.
9.0
Lasting AppealMore time to play, more nations and more options all around.
8.0Impressive
OVERALL(out of 10 / not an average)