User Guide

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idea is a fundamental policy decision that you
can instruct your country to pursue. It helps
to define the overall character of your realm.
There are thirty different, unique national ide-
as included in Europa Universalis III which may
affect your land and naval military capabilities,
your focus towards exploration and coloniza-
tion, your state’s business and trade, or your
state’s culture.
Each country may adopt as many as ten
ideas; however, you may only adopt as many
ideas as is allowed by your current government
technology level. When you begin a game in
1453, it is likely that you will not yet have suf-
ficient government technology to adopt your
first national idea. In most cases, you will need
only a modest investment over a short period
of time before reaching the necessary govern-
ment technology level 1, which unlocks the
first box. You will see an alert appear at the top
of the Main Map to remind you when a slot is
available, and as you achieve higher levels of
technology, you will be able to select additional
ideas. It is possible that your country will be
advanced enough by the end of the game to
have ten national ideas in effect.
Once a new national idea slot becomes
available, one of the ten national ideas boxes in
the Domestic Government screen will be high-
lighted in gold. Click on this box to display a
list of all the available
national ideas. Hov-
ering over an idea
will display a tool
tip that shows each
one’s effect on your
realm. All of the ide-
as will be available to
you throughout the
game as there are no
restrictions or pre-
requisites imposed upon their selection. There
is also no limit on how many ideas you may
choose from any one particular category. You
are free to choose any national idea you like.
Once you have decided on an idea, click on it
to adopt it in your realm. You will see the idea’s
graphic displayed in the box, and its effects will
be applied to your realm immediately.
You should choose your national ideas with
care. Adopting a new national idea is not at all
disruptive to your country, but it is a very dif-
ferent story if you decide to change from one
idea to another. You may, if you wish, click on
a national idea that you have already adopted
and select a different one, but there is a -1 sta-
bility penalty incurred for making the change.
You will not be able to change a national idea at
all if your realm is unstable.
The full listing of national ideas and their
effects can be found in Appendix G, but we
should draw your particular attention to the
“Quest for the New World” idea in the Explo-
ration category. This national idea allows you
to recruit explorers and conquistadors who
can then be sent out to discover any uncharted
provinces. Until you have adopted the Quest
for the New World, you will be unable to ex-
plore any provinces that are terra incognita. If
you have visions of building a vast, colonial
empire, you should choose this idea fairly early
in the game.
Domestic Policies
At the bottom of the Government page of the
interface is a series of eight “Domestic Policy”
sliders. Domestic
policies are general
trends or areas of
interest that your
country will pursue.
Unlike the invest-
ment and tolerance
sliders we saw ear-
lier, domestic policies
can only be changed
very slowly and in-
frequently because they represent fairly drastic
shifts in overall government policy in the run-
ning of the country.
Each slider offers a sliding scale of 11 dis-
tinct steps, allowing your country to determine