2.0 Game Overview #

Europa Universalis: The Price of Power is a board game of empire building, conquest, diplomacy, and exploration in the early modern era. Each player will lead one of Europe’s great nations to its glory or demise, depending on their ability to make timely choices and their skill in managing the resources available to them.

During the game, players will use Monarch Power (d) and Ducats (D) to perform Actions, such as building up military forces, fighting battles, forging diplomatic relations, and developing aspects of their societies’ internal machinery. Managing diplomatic relations with the other players is also an important aspect of the game.

This booklet covers the multiplayer rules. Solo rules are treated in a separate booklet.

Set your game up by following the instructions in chapter 3 and your chosen scenario. We recommend that you focus on learning the rules in chapters 4–8 initially. The other sections of the rules will be referenced as they are needed.For your first game, we advise you to skip all rules marked as “Advanced Rules”.

2.1 Winning the Game #

The winner will be the player who finishes the game with the most Prestige (0). There are many potential paths to victory and you will score Prestige in different ways (see p. 42), depending on how you focus your efforts.

Scoring Prestige during the game #

Players will score Prestige during the game for completing Missions and Milestones, researching Ideas, winning Wars, etc. This will all be recorded on the Prestige Track.

Final Scoring #

Final Scoring is initiated when the final round has been completed, or when certain scenario-specific conditions have been met.

At this stage all players will score Prestige for their Towns and Vassals, Diplomatic relations, controlling the Papal Curia, Imperial Authority (E), and current Stability value, among other things (see p. 11).

2.2 General Notes #

Token Limits #

Generally, if you run out of a certain type of token, you have to remove a token from somewhere else to be able to place a new one. You may choose where to take this token from, but this may only be done if there are no tokens of that type left in the Supply.

Exceptions to this are detailed below: Tokens that may not be moved

• Towns and Vassal tokens
• Alliance and Royal Marriage tokens
• Crusade/Excommunicated token
• Mercenary Units
• Religion tokens used for State Religion
• Black Units in use as Allied Units
• Ill Health tokens on Characters
• “Unlimited” tokens

Cubes (Monarch Power, Influence etc.)

Each player has 30 cubes available to use for Monarch Power, Influence, Colonists, Cardinals, charging up uses on Display Cards, and covering the income slots of Provinces Occupied by Enemies. When short on cubes, players may freely take one of their cubes from anywhere other than the Roma Cardinal, Changed Nat. Focus slot, and cubes used to cover income slots on their Player Mats.

NPR Units

NPRs always defend and invade at their normal strength, even if there are not enough NPR Units to represent them.

“Unlimited” tokens

Some tokens are considered unlimited. If they should run out, find another way of indicating their meaning. These include: Ducat coins, War/Truce tokens, Occupied tokens, +1m tokens, and Tag chits.

Rounding up

When halving numbers, always round up unless specifically stated otherwise.

Text formatting

Game terms are written with Capitalized First Letters. Actions and Action Cards are always written in Bold Italics. Area names are written in SMALL CAPS. Realm names and adjectives referencing Realms are always written like this: ›France and ›French, ›Austria and ›Austrian, etc. Ideas in the game are always in italics, enclosed by quotation marks, e.g., “Tolerance”.