History VideoGame / EuropaUniversalis

** If you're focusing on the Old World, beware of Austria, the Ottoman Empire, Burgundy and (in some versions, and mods) Russia and Poland-Lithuania. If you're focusing on the New World, beware of Spain, Portugal and England/Great Britain; in East Asia, be careful around Ming and Vijayanagar too. ''Always'' beware of France.

* KillItWithIce: Attrition is higher during winter in frozen provinces, this combined with a [[SaltTheEarth scorched-earth]] strategy can deeply decimate a superiour enemy army. The RealLife campaings in Russia can thus be simulated. (General Winter)
* TheLateMiddleAges: The earliest possible starting year is 1399.

* MissionFromGod: Three examples: The Holy War casus belli, the Deus Vult national idea and the mission mechanic flavor text: "God's will has been revealed to us !"

* TheMusical: As an April Fools' joke in the leadup to ''EU IV'', Paradox announced Europa Universalis: The Musical, and even released three songs from it: "Casus Belli," "Prestige," and "Empire Borders"
* NapoleonBonaparte

** The gag has carried on to ''[=EU III=]'''s sister game Victoria II, where the Comet Sighted event cause scientific progress (Victoria is set in the [=XIXth=] century)...and the text of the option is "Thank God we live in such enlightened times. The event, "The Curse of Tutankhamon", similarly refer back to [=EU III=]'s infamous comet.

** One type of rebel that crops up a lot are the Particularists. One joke among players is that they're called that because they don't want anything in particular, they just like revolting.

** In [=EU4=], Venice can get a mission to expand into mainland Italy. Where? [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.]] (There's a high probability that you won't get this mission due to the fact that at 1444 start Venice already owns Verona)

* UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar

** An upcoming expansion pack for January 2014, ''Conquest of Paradise''.

-->'''[=EU2=]'s Chinese "[[HistoricalInJoke The White Lotus Rebellion]]" event'''

''Europa Universalis'' has you take control of a nation from roughly 1400 to the early 1800's. There are roughly 200 of playable nations although some are more playable than others. While not ''every'' nation is in the game, a good chunk of them are, and so apart from standbys like France or Britain you can try your hand at a world conquest as the Iroquois or the sultanate of Makassar.

* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: It's possible to play a game of CrusaderKings II and use the [[OldSaveBonus old save]] to start a game of [=EU4=] where there's a nation that follows Zoroastrianism or a restored Roman Empire exists, neither of which are present in any of the starting points of normal [=EU4=] games. And they have special stats and flags like any other religion or nation!

* OldSaveBonus: You can transfer games from ''CrusaderKings'' into ''EuropaUniversalis III'', these saves can further be transferred into ''VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun'' and then into ''HeartsOfIron 2'' For a total of some 900 years of gaming.

''Europa Universalis'' is a series of historical [[TurnBasedStrategy turn-based]] / [[RealTimeStrategy real-time]] FourX grand strategy games for the PC and Mac (based [[ArtifactTitle increasingly loosely]] on a licensed French [[BoardGames board game]]). Starting in the Late Middle Ages, it focuses greatly in the Early Modern Period. The games are produced, developed and published by Creator/ParadoxInteractive.

** An upcoming expansion pack for December 2013, ''Conquest of Paradise''.

** [=EU III=] and [=EU IV=] have a mission called "A visit from some shady people", with two options "It's an offer..." [[Film/TheGodfather ... that we can refuse, actually.]]

* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: ''Conquest of Paradise'' will do this for the American continents, in an effort to recreate the spirit of adventure of the time period, and counter the fact that [[ForegoneConclusion players already know where the New World is]] while [[DramaticIrony the characters do not]]. The [[BrokenBase base is breaking as we speak.]]

** Which country you pick, which changes certain aspects such as what government you start with, and what vassals and releasable states. This can change your luck much more than the normal variant, and allows certain {{SelfImposedChallange}}s, like trying to restore the Byzantine Empire to how the Roman Empire was at its height.

* DifficultyLevels: The normal variant, plus which country you pick, which is arguably even more important.

* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: ''Conquest of Paradise'' will do this for the American continents, in an effort to recreate the spirit of adventure of the time period, and counter the fact that [[ForegoneConclusion players already know where the New World is]] while [[DramaticIrony the characters do not]].

* HolyRomanEmpire: The HRE features as an actual game mechanic where nations are voted to lead it upon death of the present leader, and with Imperial Authority can enact reforms upon the Empire. With enough reforms, the leader can make the other members their vassals, and make the Holy Roman Empire one unified country, with the head of it being the leader of the new nation. Sections of land away from the main part of the empire are labelled as 'Imperial', such as 'Imperial Asia'.

* AscendedMeme: As of the ''Divine Wind'' expansion, "Poland can into space" is an achievement acquired by reaching maximum level in all technologies as Poland.
** In addition, some of Gotland's ships have weird names, in Swedish of course: Spain is not the Emperor, Comet Sighted, Sweden is OP, Big Blue Blob, Forum Troll etc.

* HolyRomanEmpire

** The Hashashin (if you imported them from CK 2) is something about a [[Franchise/AssassinsCreed Creed]].

* LandOfOneCity: Commonly called One Province Minors, or [=OPMs=].

!!!Thus far there are three games in the series:

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Oh dear yes. Slave-trading, purging religious dissidents, backstabbing your allies, wars of aggression... It's very abstracted of course, but you can be quite nasty, and the best part is, you might not even realize that's what you're doing...