Award-winning PC Strategy Game developer Paradox Entertainment has now received recognition within the educational arena. In order to make History more interesting and more fun, IT-Gymasiet Västerås, a Swedish High School whose focus is on Information Technology, has decided to use the Paradox title Europa Universalis 2 as part of the teaching.

Patrik Markgren, teacher at IT-Gymnasiet Västerås sees many advantages with using the game in his teaching. "This is not only an excellent opportunity to make our education more fun and more interesting, but it is also a challenge for the students. The gameplay will take them through historical events, ranging from the great discovery of America and Asia through to the reformation and to the revolutions of the 18th century. The students will be forced to be engaged in the historical challenges and be responsible for developing their own country, as well as seeing the overall historical picture of certain events. Following the gaming session, our students will have experience enough to see the incentives behind historical events such as the reformation, as they themselves as Rulers have had the opportunity to balance between advantages and drawbacks of certain events."

"Of course we see this as both intriguing and flattering" says Fredrik W. Lindgren, Head of Sales and Marketing at Paradox Entertainment. "This shows that our games are not only excellent and challenging strategy games, but they can also function as an alternative history teaching tool. We invest lots of resources to make the gameplay challenging, but also to get the historical details right."

Europa Universalis 2 takes place in Europe 1419-1819, where the player assumes the role of a Ruler of a country and wages war, trades, handles diplomatic conflicts and discovers new worlds as well as develops cultural life. In the game you are forced to take decisions not only in concerning your own country, but also to historical events that will guide your fate through history.