User Guide

10
Starting a Game
New Single Player Games
Click the “Single Player” button on the Main
Game menu to start a new single-player game,
or to load an existing saved game. After a mo-
ment, you will see the main country selection
menu that you will use to choose a starting
date and nation to play during your game.
The central area of your screen is domi-
nated by a large, scrollable map of the world.
Moving your mouse pointer to the edge of your
screen will pan the map in that direction, al-
lowing you to move to almost any position on
the globe. For convenience, EU3 uses a rectan-
gular Mercator projection of the world and re-
stricts you from panning too close to the north
or south poles. You may use the arrow keys on
your keyboard to scroll the map if you prefer.
Above the map is a red banner that shows
the game’s start date. The default starting date
is May 30th, 1453, which is shortly after the
fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman army.
You may choose to start at a later date by ad-
justing the “date selector”, located to the left
of the map at the bottom of a list of historical
“bookmarks”.
On the map itself, you will a multi-col-
oured patchwork of countries, with thick red
lines marking the borders between each na-
tion. Thinner black lines distinguish the sep-
arate provinces within each country, and are
the primary object of conquest. If you hover
your mouse pointer over a province, you will
see a small tool tip that shows the province’s
name and the country that owns it. Clicking
on a province will select that country as being
the one that you wish to play. Before doing so,
you should first decide on a starting date for
the game because the availability of countries
and ownership of provinces is determined by
the start date.