Plenty of games will claim to be unique, but very rarely does a game as unique as Europa 1400 come along. The game has an interesting blend of RTS and RPG elements, and with hours of gameplay and fierce competition, it’s a memorable gaming experience.

The game takes place in Europe during the 1400s. This is a time of free-thinkers and merchants where a simple entrepreneur can become a wealthy noble almost over night! You start off by choosing your parents from several choices (poet, priest, mercenary, etc). The parents you choose will have a direct effect on your stats, such as your negotiation and handicraft skills. You can then choose a city of varying difficulty where your game will take place. Now, the game begins and it’s time for you to begin your quest for fame and fortune.

You start off with a small business, and by managing it right, you can amass enough money to expand. You hire employees to work for you and gather raw materials to keep your production going. You can also upgrade your business by adding new rooms and features, or you can build new buildings and buy out other businesses. But, there are many other dynasties working against you fighting over power in Europa 1400. Their businesses will compete head to head with yours, and they’ll even attempt to rob or sabotage you!

You can overcome your foes in many different ways, such as espionage or simply by spreading your business all through the town and overpowering them. As you play through the game you’ll collect AP (action points), which you can use to increase your individual stats (such as handicraft skills, which allow you to force your employees to work harder). These individual skills can make a huge difference when competing head to head with other dynasties, and unless you want to fall behind you’ve got to keep up.

There’s more to the game than just mass production and AP, though. To increase your status in the community and influence how the town runs, you can run for various political offices. You also can achieve greater titles in the community by running a successful business, and the higher your title the more different types of businesses you can control. And don’t forget to court a wife and raise a family so that your business will continue on once your character has passed away. The competition in Europa 1400 is fierce, and fun, and my experience of going from a simple bar owner to a wealthy noble was something that I think most gamers will enjoy.

With a game so deep and complex as Europa 1400 you can expect to have to spend some time getting used to things. There’s a lot to do and keep track of in the game, and missing one thing can really screw you up. There’s a pretty straightforward, but long and boring, tutorial that will teach you how to do things, but you won’t likely really get the hang of it until several hours into the game. The controls are also a little bit troublesome at times, and if nothing else, navigating through the city (especially once it’s begun to expand and becomes quite large) can be difficult. It’s also quite difficult to monitor your workers, and sometimes they can be pretty moronic and do the exact opposite of what you want them to. So, you end up having to check up on them pretty often to make sure they’re keeping the storeroom stocked up and to make sure they actually make materials that you need. This ends up taking up a lot more time than it really should have.

Graphically, Europa 1400 is nothing special. The character portraits look awful, and the fact that half of the characters look exactly the same doesn’t help any. Other than that, the environments look nice and feature some pretty weather effects. Backgrounds in some of the buildings are really dull and repetitive (all the bars look alike), and that can get pretty boring. All in all, although the graphics aren’t horrible, they certainly would have been a lot better if half as much detail were put into them as was in the gameplay.

Europa has some pretty good voice acting (although, I still don’t understand why all the citizens in Paris speak with British accents), and the sound is of high quality. You’ll hear the occasional background noise in the city that will bring the whole place to life, and the music is pretty entertaining as well.

As if the head to head competition wasn’t fierce enough, you can also play a multi-player mode where you and some friends can battle over supremacy in Europe. Combined with the fact that you can spend hours and hours on the single player mode, Europa 1400 is a game that you’ll certainly get your money's worth out of.

Europa 1400 might take a little bit of time getting used to, and you may not even like it at first, but once you get the hang of things, it’s a fun game with many hours worth of entertainment. I can safely recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of RTS games and RPGs.

Final Grade: 85%