Yeah I get that the fun is in loosing and all but when I said I don't know how to play I really mean I have no idea what it is I'm supposed to be doing besides clicking on the end turn button. I'll give it another shot sometimes but it really bugged me how user unfriendly it was.
oh nice, thanks for that

You sure we're talking about Europa Universalis here :P

I wonder what would he think of Victoria II then!

I still can't get around it :D Although playing as USA during the Civil war is super fun. Playing in the middle of Europe is harder, methinks.

And I think I'll never understand HOI3 >.<

You have to let the installer actually start. Otherwise, the downloader encrypts the file. Just the first screen, where it tells you to close all other apps, suffices.

As to this quill guy, checked a bit of his channel and wasn't particularly impressed. Runs a good and entertaining channel, but I have the feeling most MP regulars will eat him for breakfast. My personal favourite method of consuming others' games are the old-fashioner after-action reports on the Paradox forum. They're a grand old tradition, and there's annual prizes for the best ones (used to be, anyway). Also, they're more entertaining than your average Youtube LPer, because the authors easily skip over the dull parts.

To be fair towards Paradox, all of their games primarily use Steam as a store and don't use the DRM CEG component of Steamworks. If you wanted to, you could play them without the client (although you have to go out of your way to make it happen) and I'm sure future games will be the same. For most people, that's probably an acceptable compromise. The only people who are screwed are people like you and me, who don't wish to support Steam financially on principle. Thankfully, it looks like at least East vs. West will still have a non-Steam release.

In any case, I got into the series with EU III: Chronicles (although I have the retail version, so I can't confirm how the Steam version works) and I can confirm that it's a great game and a good entry point for newcomers. It does take some getting used to, but once you've played it for a bit, you'll realise it's not as scary as it looks.

One piece of advice I can give regarding playing the game is to watch your inflation. Especially if you are playing a non-Westernised country, inflation can become a very serious problem if you're not careful. Unfortunately, there aren't too many ways you can deal with inflation before you've developed a lot of Goverment tech. However, there are at least three things you can do: hire a really good (5-star) Master of the Mint as your advisor, avoid relying on minting extra money as much as possible and be conservative in your territorial expansions. You won't be able to avoid minting entirely (afterall, building up and maintaining a large enough army can be expensive), but if you let your yearly taxes take care of most of your financial expenditures, you should be able to keep inflation relatively low.

Also he get sole exclusivity to play and record EU4 and post it on youtube from what I have heard.

Hmm, EU3: Chronicles appears to be on GamersGate:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-EU3C/europa-universalis-iii-chronicles

But its double the current Steam sale price ($15 vs $30). The reason I am considering Steam is it includes the Mac version. I haven't found the Mac version elsewhere for less than $30.

Yep. Paradox seem to really like him, so he's the only one allowed to publish EU4 gameplay videos right now.

He also gets advanced information on Paradox updates sometimes and, like I said, they paid for him to go to Sweden so obviously Paradox thinks he's doing a good job playing their games :)

Personally, I like him. He's calm, respectful, doesn't feel the need to swear his way through every video and explains everything he's doing while he's doing it which, if you're not an expert at the game, is a huge help when it comes to trying to figure out how to play them yourself. I've also never seen him lose a game, although he probably has.

I learnt how to play Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis 3 by watching his videos. Have become quite good at both of them :), and a lot of that has to do with his videos.

I'm surprised by how many people do that. I've found like a handful of people whose videos I watch off and on, but that's about it. Personally, I find radio voices so much easier on the ear too, so that kind of limits the selection further. Quill doesn't quite fit into that category, but I do like his videos and like you say, I'm learning how to play these games.

They have said that from EUIV on they'll go Steam, with things for multiplayer and achievements and stuff. The Gamersgate version of their older games used a completely separate method of updating and getting DLC and stuff, that made it much more complicated. Unless they went back and changed their minds (not without precedent, they previously said that CK2 was going to be their last $39.99 game).

the make-up of the EU III Chronicles bundle on Gamersgate does indeed differ slightly from the steam version

On GG , EU-C is actually a single package made of the base game and of its 4 expansions
On Steam, it's a bundle of 3 packages : EU complete ( base game and 1st 2 expansions ) and the later 2 expansions. And indeed, only the first item has both Win/ Mac versions. And I'm not even sure that the version of "complete" included in the newer one ( the older one would not accept the later 2 expansions without an update )

The reason for this : the IP for the Mac versions of the later 2 expansion is with a third party and Steam isn't willing to pay for that :

http://steam4mac.com/?p=229
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1644567


Yep. Looks like EUIII will be my last EU game....

As long as I get to strip out the gameplay files and play the game drm-free without the Steam client, I guess I'm slightly ok with it.

Doh, thanks for the information. I figured it had to do with some type of licensing. I'll still be able to play the expansions, just easier to have the native Mac versions. Maybe down the road if I see them for real cheap, I'll pick them up (if its possible to integrate them into the version I got from Steam).