I'm hooked on Victoria 2, how is EU III ? Was thinking of buying it.
Played HOI2 a little, liked it but definitely got more into Victoria 2. Was thinking of HOI3 when I noticed Divine Wind add-on for EU III and started looking at that.
I loved EUIII before Vicky II came out (I only got introduced to Paradox games shortly beforehand so I figured I'd just wait). The best thing about EUIII is that it's a good primer for the rest of their games, but if you've already got a handle on Victoria you hardly need that... going back to Divine Wind was... there's no where near as much to do as in Victoria (just because the game's simpler, and because the countries are smaller). There's no pops or anything, you can't adjust taxes really, technology works differently, etc. They say the Europa Universalis series is the easiest from Paradox, and it's certainly a lot easier than Victoria, though I've never played Hearts of Iron nor Crusader Kings.
On the up side, because Europe's even more fractioned, diplomacy is really interesting (and, on top of that, the HRE and Papacy are modeled, religion is really important), and the game is extremely open ended (sometimes France does... what France did, sometimes it gets taken apart by Burgundy and England and whatever, etc. etc.). These are things I really missed when going to Victoria, everything's pretty much set in stone, it seems, by comparison by 1836.
