Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun (PC)

Anyway for a long time Europa Universalis II was my favorite game, but just before christmas Paradox studies released Victoria which pretty much out classes EUII in every way. Whether you are a war mongerer ready to carve out an empire, a builder seeking to build a industrial powerhouse or a diplomat wanting to weave a web of alliances Victoria has something for you! However, you can't be one to the exclusion of all others. A warmongerer needs a decent economy to fund his war machine, a builder had better build an army if he wants to keep his well built up country and a diplomat will find his allies useful should he turn expandsionist.

The economic system is interesting and the AI is strong and does not cheat. If the invasion AI in hearts of iron disapointed you then you are in for a treat. You may think you are safe as a south american nation to thumb your nose at europe, but if you do you will find transport ships unloading army after army on your shores while warships cover the invasion.

Reading "Take sides in the American Civil War, crush the Zulus, or force open the Dardanelles in the Crimean War." you may think the game is limited in scope, but that short list is only a tiny percentage of what you can do in the game. You can control any nation in the world from 1836 to 1920. There are also several later start dates which focus on certain events, like the american civil war or world war one. You can lead the UK to victory in WWI or start was Prussia in 1836, unifiy Germany early or at the historical moment, ally with Britain and crush France in the 1880s. Keep Texas indepenant from the Union or fight the Yankees in the ACW. Turn Italy communist or make Russia a democracy. Anything goes.

Although reviews pointed out many bugs and poor stability the latest patch (V1.03) takes care of all of these. Even with v1.01 I only had one crash in a month of playing. The UK version ships as 1.03 anyway so you don't even need to download a patch. Paradox has a history of excellent support for their games. The first couple of patches fix bugs and later patches tweak the game or add new feature. Check www.paradoxplaza.com for later patches and if you have any problems with the game just ask in the forums, most of the time you will be answered within the hour.

With so many countries and several starting times Victoria offers almost infinate replayability. I've had my copy since I got an american import in december and I still play it every day inbetween posting in the forum and working on my mod (Did I mention almost all the game data is in text files so modding is a breeze?). So if you like strategy on a global scale buy Victoria now!

If you are a fan of empire games and have never played anything of this depth before I recommend you try it out and approach it with some prepared patience. Once you've got into it believe me you'll not turn it off till you've finished your first grand campaign. Then after that you'll have a short break before you launch into the next one. I found myself pulling 20 hour days on this thing, but it was all worth it to see Brazil rise to become the 2nd most powerful nation of the world!

The Graphics

If you're looking for 3d rendered armies marching across lush swaying fields of golden wheat then look elsewhere. The graphics are sufficient for what they are displaying. Bearing in mind this is only a map of the world with armies marching across it hardly requires state of the art graphics. The battles are conducted automatically, thus you wont see 3d armies fighting but a small unit animation which is sufficient. In short graphics aren't what you play this game for.

Sound

The sound in the game is fantastic. Nothing short of top class music of the period from classical scores from the likes of Mozart, triumphant brass bands and a full length overture of Rule Britannia. If you're not partial to this music then you can simply turn it off but in my opinion it suits the game perfectly. The only negative here is the noise played when you select cavalry, a trumpet is blared out at you dragging on forever and quite frankly after the 400th selection it begins to get annoying. Thankfully this can also be turned off.

Game play
The game play is superb you are literally catered with every facet of empire management. The period is 1830-1920 so you can play as any nation around in that period from a giant such as the United Kingdom to the small insignificant Ethiopia. To label all the things you are in change of in Victoria would take me beyond the scope of the review, but you are responsible for economic, political, social, diplomatic and militaristic affairs. Those are very broad generalisations I've placed everything under but seriously this game is crammed full of features. Special mention has to be given to the diplomatic system which is the most robust and flexible diplomatic implementation to a game I have ever seen. If you've ever played Alpha Centauri and been impressed with the diplomacy in that Victoria puts it to shame. I must take this moment to cover something I deem very important with regard to war in the game. This is not Rome/Medieval/Shogun Total War. In the above titles war is the primary and sole objective of the game. In Victoria war is a key part and you are unlikely to want to play a game without it but that is all it is, a part. No special attention is given to war over that of diplomacy, economy etc. This doesn't mean that war in the game is lacking on the contrary it's highly in depth as with the rest of the game but it IS integrated. Your capacity for making war is reliant on your empire management in other areas and you're going to find it very difficult to win your war if you ignore the other areas. After all as in real life empires aren't built by focusing purely on war.

Historic content

If you are after a title that also pays attention to history you'll enjoy this. The game has a vast array of historic events within it. These events aren't fixed however they must be triggered. Which leads to the "What if?" scenarios mentioned in an earlier review. You choose which path your nation should follow when these events are triggered so you can either follow the tracks history has made or invent your own. These can lead to some rather quirky turns in history. For example I had a USA game in which the American Civil War was fought by the USA, United Kingdom, Russia and France against the CSA and Mexico. This was caused by the nature of the diplomatic treaties each nation had with one another and whilst a little bemusing at first I'm sure you'll agree it was an interesting turn of events. New events are being added all the time by the community and they're very easy to make because all you need is notepad! This makes it a modders dream!

Replayability

The game has buckets of replay value and to use a tired cliché is different each time you play it. You can choose any country you want and follow any path of history that unfolds. Of course at the same time as your declaring wars, making treaties and choosing events so are all the other countries so even if you follow exactly each step you took in the last game sooner or later another of the many nations of the world is going to do something different.

Overall Verdict

The game isn't for everyone, but for the select few out there who love empire management this really is the crème de la crème.

The game starts around 1830 and goes right through to 1920, allowing you to play through one of the most historically fascinating periods in european history: Germany's unification under Bismarck, her subsequent fight for a place in the sun, etc etc.

As usual, the game's wealth of detail is stunning. Basically every single pivotal event for every (yes, every!) nation in the game is included. As usual, one can choose to take the historical path, but I usually enjoy playing 'what if' to see what could have happened. This can lead to some interesting results: Scandinavia as one nation under Swedish hegemony (paradox are mostly swedes, incidentally) and they even thought up a flag for the new nation.....

Summing up, Victoria is a great addition to the EU series and should keep you occupied for hours.