Paradox Interactive is a Swedish Game developer that has specialized in grand strategy games. Titles like Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron and Crusader Kings are all examples of Paradox grand strategy titles. They all work in a very similar way, they are real time strategy games where you control either a country or a dynasty (depending on the game) and try to steer said nation or dynasty through the challenges that the time period featured presents. You play the games on a 3-d map where you have a couple of provinces under your control at start. Of course if you start as a large nation you might have a really big empire to begin with already. You can always pause the game in order to make important decisions, which help especially when you are at war. Of course in Paradox games wars aren't everything. You will probably not be able to conquer the whole map anyways. Diplomacy, economic policy, trade and your laws are as important. You have to make sure your people like you enough to not rebel every time and you always have to balance your budget to make sure your economy don't collapse. Also diplomacy is always important. If you just wage war all the time every other nation will hate you and gang up on you. In Paradox games creating alliance or other pacts are very important features, every nation need friends. It also always help to choose your conflicts, don't attack unprovoked too much. Try to get casus bellis (justification for war) or just make defensive pacts with your neighbors. Sometimes you gain the most from wars you enter to protect another nation.
Europa Universalis 3 is the third installment in the Europa Universalis series. It takes on the time period 1399-1820, from the Renaissance to the fall of Napoleon. It gives you the option to play as anything from great powers such as France and the Ottoman Empire to trade powers such as Portugal and Venice, and to small principalities of the Holy Roman Empire such as Bavaria, Luneburg and the Palatinate. You can also play as non- European powers such as Ming China, the Sultanate of Brunei, several Indian kingdoms, the Songhay empire in Africa and much more. Europa Universalis 3 has 4 expansion packs: Napoleon's Ambition, In Nomine, Heir to the Throne and Divine Wind. The expansions have added so much more to the game that I wouldn't recommend playing it without them. Vanilla EU 3 actually feel a little bit empty. I would therefor recommend people new to the series to buy the Europa Universalis 3 Chronicles package since it contains all 4 expansions (the Complete package actually only have the two first ones, since they hadn't planned to do more expansions when the package was launched). The expansions has actually added so much that it feels like playing a whole new game. If there's something to criticize Paradox for is that they have not really given Africa much love, which is sad. This also apply to other titles such as Victoria where Africa feels too empty and you miss many of the historical African kingdoms. But I can honestly say that Europa Universalis 3 indeed are one of my favorite games.
When you have familiarized yourself with the game you might want to try some user made mods. These can be found on the Paradox forums on the Paradox interactive homepage. Some of the mods like Magna Mundi and MEIOU adds a lot to the game and are nothing short of masterpieces on their own right. I would also recommend to always update to the newest patch of the game, since even the patches sometimes adds a lot of new goodies.
The Paradox Interactive homepage: www.paradoxplaza.com
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