Europa Universalis (board game)

Europa Universalis is a board game published by Azure Wish Editions and created by Philippe Thibault. It covers the period between 1492 and 1792 and allows six players to play the various powers of Europe (Spain, France, England, Ottoman Empire, Portugal/Russia, Venice/Holland/Austria).

It was later turned into a video game by Paradox Entertainment under the name Europa Universalis.

Description

This atypically long board game is announced as having a playing time of 360 minutes on the game box, but games typically can last for weeks (Board Game Geek estimates the playing time to be 15 days).[1]

Material

About one thousand markers are used, as well as two 56 cm × 86 cm (22 in × 34 in) maps: one for Europe, one for the rest of the world. The English rulebook is about 72 pages long.

Gameplay

The players have an extraordinary amount of control over what they do: economics, military, maintenance, discoveries, colonial investment. One drawback is that there is a lot of calculation and management required during the game (computing income, price changes, maintenance and purchases of military resources).

Extensions and variants

Official extensions

A first extension[2] was published bringing (essentially) new rules about forts and missionaries and also a new set of objectives.

A second extension is widely circulated on the internet. It brought yet another set of rules (like palaces), including historical monarchs (with predefined characteristics) and fast combat system (that could divide by ten or more the time for one battle) and many new minor countries and counters. It was never published.

Variants

The mailing-list[3] is quite responsive in suggestions and advices about the rules.

Two variants are quite circulated also: the event rewrite by Risto Majormaa[4] and the Europa8 version[5] by Pierre Borgnat, Bertrand Asseray, Jean-Yves Moyen and Jean-Christophe Dubacq (which introduces two more players, revised counters and maps, and is not finished yet). Both of these can be freely obtained either by download or by asking the authors.

References

  1. ↑ "Board Game Geek description of the game". Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  2. ↑ "Board Game Geek description of the extension". Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  3. ↑ "Yahoo groups mailing-list". Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  4. ↑ "Risto's rewrite". Retrieved 2006-11-24.
  5. ↑ "Europa 8 variant". Retrieved 2006-11-24.
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