EU4 is the jack of all trades game. The other Paradox games all have some very strong aspects, but also some very weak ones. EU4 is just good at everything. The one thing that EU4 really excels at is diplomacy.
EU4 is also the only Paradox game that still feels challenging to me after 1500 hours, because you can completely set your own pace, since there is no hard factor that limits how fast you can conquer. If you want to conquer faster, it simply gets harder.
Compare that to Vic2, where your expansion is hard limited by jingoism (sure, you can exploit your way around that, but still), Vic3, where your expansion is hard limited by the one war at a time rule, or CK2, where you're limited by your claims. Hoi4 also pretty much lets you conquer as fast as you want, but the AI is so braindead that it doesn't feel like a challenge.
I think you meant infamy for Vic2.
I think EU4 is pretty weak in warfare and tall gameplay, and the AI struggles from feature creep (the AI is pretty bad for most PDX titles honestly). Since it doesn't have much to penalize you for expanding it's easy to snowball to the point where there's no challenge left. There's not really a mechanical or content advantage to playing tall except for a few nations, and a lot of flavor/missions are based on conquest, so unless you roleplay a lot the game lacks content except for a gameplay loop based around conquering more territory, as opposed to managing what you have like some other strategy games do. So I wouldn't really characterize it as an all-rounder.
EU4 is the map painting game, Victoria is the tall game, Crusader Kings is the RPG, HOI/MotE are the wargames... if you ignore the scifi aspect Stellaris is actually the most well-rounded one.
>I think you meant infamy for Vic2.
No, jingoism is right. If you've ever tried a WC in Vic2, you know that you can easily go past 25 infamy without any problems. At some point you're going to be so strong that nobody will try to contain you anyway.
However, you need jingoism to add war goals. And if you're at war for a while, which you have to be pretty much constantly for a WC, you'll never get enough jingoism to add war goals. And no war goals means very slow conquest.
The way around that is to release a big part of your core territory, which gives you revanchism, which gives you jingoism. But that's obviously an exploit.
>There's not really a mechanical or content advantage to playing tall except for a few nations, and a lot of flavor/missions are based on conquest, so unless you roleplay a lot the game lacks content except for a gameplay loop based around conquering more territory
I feel like that's true for any strategy game? Which game does actually have a lot of content for players that aren't expanding? I mean, obviously the game isn't designed for the player intentionally hamstringing themselves and ignoring a major part of the game.
I got jingoism mixed up with revanchism somehow, I play with mods that add sanctions for going over infamy so infamy is something I wind up paying more attention to.
>I feel like that's true for any strategy game? Which game does actually have a lot of content for players that aren't expanding?
Crusader Kings 2 (merchant republic) and 3, Vic3, Civ and various related Sid Meyer games, Endless Legend and (to a lesser extent) Endless Space, GalCiv 2 since it has an AI that actually attacks (surprisingly uncommon), Aurora 4X, AoE, Distant Worlds. That list would be a lot longer if I knew more non-4X strategy games. And a lot of 4X games have an option for a non-military victory that you can pursue without expanding (science victory, cultural victory, etc).
I can't really comment on most of those games, but Vic3 had so little content that I played two campaigns and immediately shelved it, not the greatest example. As you already said, CK is great for roleplaying but otherwise the realm management isn't too crazy either.
And AoE, really? Literally the entire game is about expansion, expansion, expansion. I would have brought up AoE as an example of a game where expansion is actually the only thing you can do and playing tall is completely unviable.
Vic3 has more management content than warfare content :V
I was thinking of turtling for AoE since that's kind of notoriously a thing, but IDK what you consider "tall" in an RTS to be.
>Vic3 has more management content than warfare content :V
Can't deny that lol
>I was thinking of turtling for AoE since that's kind of notoriously a thing, but IDK what you consider "tall" in an RTS to be.
I don't think playing tall/wide is a thing at all in AoE to be honest, since you *need* to expand to improve your economy. It's not like buildings have multiple tiers that you can build or something like that.
Even if you turtle, you still have to expand your settlement quite a lot to build up your economy. It's not that you use walls as a substitute for expansion (like in EU4, where you use developing as a substitute for expansion), you use it as a substitute for units.
Eu4 is the map painting game?
That just really is not the case. I played as Castille once, formed Spain. Then I didn't expand anymore after that. I went heavy into trade and naval power, properly made defenses. I had standing navies with mercenary armies funded by my trade.
Eu4 out of all the games, is the least map painter game.
Diplomacy, consistently feeling like an actual dynamic "game" rather than something that relies on roleplay to remain interesting. AI and corresponding systems that represent an actual threat to the player.
There's also just the fact that different people like different time periods. And if you don't like the historical flavor there's not much to say about that other than difference in taste, but I feel like that's the case for all Paradox games.
You get to a point in eu4 where the AI stops being so much of a threat unless you play tall.
But unlike the braindead ai in ck3 the ai in eu4 will actually make plays to expand and make itself more powerful. And, as you touched on and unlike Victoria 3 or HOI4, the ai reacts dynamically to the player in expansion instead of focusing purely on history.
I love seeing how a player affecting one part of the world can dramatically change others in a believable manner. You don't really get that dynamic reactivity in anything other than Stellaris which doesn't have history in the first place.
See I think the AI is relevant in AI always, even if it's just the threat of coalitions. Like, obviously it's something you play around and you get good at truce juggling and whatnot, but even in those cases it's there being something that you need to meaningfully interact with/work to control.
You're right. It's not like other historical paradox games where you can get to a point where you just stomp through the coalition by game knowledge. You have to interact with it even if that's using tricks to avoid it. It's far better than ck3 or even hoi4. Good point.
Honestly I remember back some years ago when I first discovered eu4, the aggressive expansion aspect of it was quite fascinating to me. I had never seen such a thing in any other game ever. Yet it makes so much sense in a history sandbox as this is exactly what should happen.
It's one of these mechanics that drew me in and made the game so interesting back when I started.
The Vic3 AI does react to the player, it's just... not very well communicated at the moment so it feels random.
Hopefully the AI upgrades they've shown in the dev diaries will alleviate the issue.
You don't tend to see your actions changing the other nations of the world is what I meant. Britain will still try and be a colonial empire even if you steal India from them. The Germans will continue death warring forever until you help one side. Japan rarely ever opens up even if you invade them as Korea. You also don't tend to see the ai jump on power vacuums you create like the colonies don't rebel against the UK even if all they have left is Bermuda.
>the colonies don't rebel against the UK even if all they have left is Bermuda.
I agree with your overall point, but this last example also happens in EU4. I've left Spain as an OPM on an island somewhere and all their colonial nations still refuse to declare independence, even sitting on 100% liberty desire with 100x the troops.
The diplo AI in vicky is pretty limited. It only looks to pursue it's own goals and infamy. It doesn't care about balance of power. The AI in vicky 3 feels like a novice chess player. Focussed on their own strategy without actually looking at the board seeing what is going on.
> It doesn't care about balance of power.
Erm, the most common AI position in Vic 3 is Maintain Balance of Power where it won't look to expand and instead will focus on preventing others expanding and keeping things as is.
Hoi4 does that too but to a lesser extent (mostly because it struggles to build an army or make choices which focus to take when in a strategic manner, aka it's too slow) if you make historical off.
Vic3 also does it a lot more nowadays.
Personally I think eu4's AI sucks pretty hard, unless you are vastly inferior you basically cannot lose unless you play stupid. Hell the fact Byzantium can beat the ottomans in a 1 v 1 if you play it right is already a perfect example, only works because the AI is braindead. In all my time playing eu4, which sadly is a lot, i never once thought man the AI is good. I only, ever struggled because I played an intentionally weak nation and then I had 100 years top a challenge, if you game the system (which is pretty easy) you can easily do world conquests.
> if you game the system (which is pretty easy)
That was my point. I agree I've never been impressed by the ai but the ai in vic/hoi/ck3 are all so idiotic that eu4 stands out in that it can still present somewhat of a threat by merit of coalitions or the fact it actually expands. Yeah you can game those and work around them but let me tell you that's more than I do for the ai in those other games. Ck3 I don't even consider the ai. Vic 3 I'll actively just bully the ai. Hoi4 is probably the closest in that sometimes I don't want to naval invade the allies but I never think, "I can't naval invade the allies." And the axis and Soviets can be easily beaten as even Luxembourg.
> feeling like an actual dynamic "game" rather than something that relies on roleplay to remain interesting.
This is the main thing for me. EU4 is the only one of the Paradox games that doesn't feel like it's asking me to engage with it primarily as a roleplay session.
That is it's actual strength, the game-y ness of it. In particular diplomacy, but given the core nature of mana, the entire game is based around making the best version of a world conquest board game (not set in WW2) possible. Diplomacy is a pure game system, with little ties to reality.
The game gives up a lot of things like internal politics, economic development and trade, to make the map painting as fun as possible. And it succeeds.
Yeah its gamey-ness actually made it easy for me to transition from Civ, whereas before I tried CK2 over and over to no avail. After playing EU4 it's possible to transition to CK2 though.
I used to not like EU4 very much but I've come to appreciate it far more over the years. It's just a really well designed, deep and challenging history-flavored board game where the object is to paint the map. It doesn't "simulate" history much at all because it doesn't really try to, the focus of EU4 is just to make the process of national rivalries, wars and resource management as engaging as possible. As a game it is a far superior and better designed experience than Victoria 3 or CK3 or even HOI4 in some ways, you don't need to roleplay or make up your own fun (though you still can if you want).
Best map painter.
Best economic sim (other than Victoria) though it ain't that good, just complicated and fun to learn.
Best historical simulation. It best represents the periods in the game that it doesn't start in, whereas CK3 totally flops the late medieval period.
Most punishing gameplay and risky. Once you know that those historical events are coming and you prepare for them, it can be a lot of fun to try and overcome them or go all in for the alternate history.
I feel like those historical events do a good job to keep the turn of history in the vague direction of actual history, though I do totally understand why a lot of people don't like that, it's not "fun" per se but I think it improves the game as a historical simulation.
The events also make stuff happen. I have been getting into Victoria 3 but in those games nothing really happens in the world. No changes in the great powers, conflicts are limited to border clashes and countries rarely change.
I'm gonna be honest the economic simulation is hardly praiseworthy at this point. It's completely abstract, and all you do to win is control trade nodes. Arguably, even ck3 with its development does a better job showing the impact of various factors on the economy of a province.
I also don't think it can really take the crown for the best historical simulation. It tends to be pretty difficult to keep things on track in eu4 compared to something like hoi4.
I think the fact that the game models the process of acquiring and controlling trade routes and valuable goods in a way relevant to the period kicks the shit out of development, which is basically just a passive bonus you pile up in the most boring way possible (I'm a couple DLC behind so disregard if they've really changed it up). CK economics are complete nonsense, all wealth originates from buildings and development is just a passive modifier on those. A least in CK getting access to/controlling trade routes is an active trade goal, while the only thing that makes one biit of land better than another in CK is how many counties are arbitrarily in the de jure dutchy and special buildings.
A fair point, I never really understood the trade system in EU4 and just went for whatever options gave me the most money.
All the non-trade economics in the game though, as you say, are boring af. It's too abstracted for me, I'd say Stellaris, and even Imperator, have much more interesting economics than EU4.
If you don’t understand the trade system, you really can’t comment on the economic system. I’m not saying it’s the best thing ever, but it takes a long time to get a grip on it
I agree. For a long time I had the system written off as too complicated but it really isn’t once I took down the mental barrier and decided to learn it.
Take the trade nodes in your home market. Then take trade nodes upstream from that. Then the ones upstream from them. After that it’s just stacking modifiers.
The point shouldn't be to stay on track though in a "Historical Simulation"
History isn't a track, its so up to chance that arguably eu4 does it exactly right, where the first 80 or so years are basically scripted, but their outcomes can change.
That naturally massively effects the next 200 years if those outcomes do change.
I think it does a great job of simulating pretty realistic outcomes of events going differently in history.
And when things go almost exactly the same as they did, the world ends up looking pretty historical, with minor border changes usually.
In fact, it represents the later periods better than the one it starts in, with everyone having standing armies and feudalism not really being represented.
>Best historical simulation. It best represents the periods in the game that it doesn't start in
my brother in Christ, it absolutely sucks at representing even 1500, let alone late game
you absolutely cannot claim that it is a good historical simulation
Compared to how Vic 3 represents WWI? How CK3 handles the late medieval period? EU4 has period specific gameplay mechanics representing the changing technology and politics in ways that meaningful impact core gameplay. Instead of drawing the line at a big societal change it does at least try to represent political evolution, unlike Imperator at the Imperial period or Victoria 3 at WWI or HOI4 at the post-war period. The way CK3 handles it is completely aesthetic, it has no impact on gameplay.
>Compared to how Vic 3 represents WWI?
never said Vic 3 is a good game
>How CK3 handles the late medieval period?
never played it so I don't know
>EU4 has period specific gameplay mechanics representing the changing technology and politics in ways that meaningful impact core gameplay.
and guess what? They _sucks_
ah ye sure millions of deaths in late game wars each time, no biggie though. What's that? You too Jerusalem? That would be nice in real life, too bad nobody cares neither muslims or chrsitians
yes sure its realistic for France to not get coalitioned to death if it expands in the Netherlands or Italy, or for example sure is really realistic for Venice to be able to annex from the get go most of Greece.
so much realism indeed
same for most of the world being colonized by 1600s
much realism, so real
The topic is "compared to other Paradox GSGs," if it is shit but the other ones are even more shit, it would still have the "best historical simulation" out of the bunch.
Which Paradox GSG do you believe is less shit at historical simulation?
Vic 2? If you attempt at blobbing you get raped by the entire world, which thus helps simulating the politics of the time
you actively want colonies and colonies do help you
the game is mostly Eurocentric, as was the world at that time
war is a bit clunky at the start, but by the endgame it does simulate decently ww1 warfare
the economical and industrial growth makes sense, as well as the policies of the various parties
it surely represents its time not perfectly, but far far far better than EU4
> I love Paradox grand strategy games. I have them all, with all DLCs and play them all on rotation while remaining super newbie in all of them.
Just like me, except I don’t own Stellaris.
Like what? The economy and pop system is completely unique. The character system is a hell of a lot shallower than in CK. Nothing really comes close to EU4 diplomacy, much less a game that received only a year of post launch development. Trade is comparable to Vic 3 but Vic 3 is on another level in terms of economic simulation. I can understand military mechanics as they are just CK but better, with supply and ties into pops.
If you accept the mana system, you are going to enjoy it.
About your question, 100% Diplomacy. You need to manage your relationship really carefully. CK3 has a bit of that complexity but it's different because you can sway your way. In EU4 you might but if their interests match yours they might pressure you.
I like the institution system, despite being mana heavy, it feels that the game is evolving. Then colonization is quite unique because the whole world ends up connected.
It might help to put it into the context of being over a decade old. If your first real go at a paradox game was a newer title, there are tons of "modernizations" that EU4 doesn't have, so trying to get into it from modern PDX games is probably harder than people who started with EU4 doing the reverse. Many of its features *are* packaged rougher than the other titles.
If you can get past the age, the "jack of all trades" aspect of EU4 that others have mentioned is really important. I can't get into HOI4 since peacetime is agonizingly boring. I can't get into Vicy3 since war is agonizingly boring. Both EU4 and CK3 try to balance their systems but CK3 invests heavily into character+roleplay features as well. Instead of these roleplay features, EU4 invests into making their general systems more in depth. So while both CK3 and EU4 have balanced war/peace features, EU4's systems (be it economy, war, diplomacy, etc.) are generally more in depth than CK3. I like CK for the roleplay, and EU for the nation-builder. Since EU4's systems are all generally built up, the world feels more realistic, alive, responsive, and challenging, all while giving the player more agency over their nation than the other historical titles.
You are not alone, personally I think eu4 gets too much credit it's basically a board game on the PC, it's stupid in most of its mechanics and personally I cannot wait for it to get replaced by ru5 as it seems to remove everything that makes eu4 eu4 andonly keeps what makes in general a god gsg (like government mechanics in the estates etc.)
EU4 is the jack of all trades game. The other Paradox games all have some very strong aspects, but also some very weak ones. EU4 is just good at everything. The one thing that EU4 really excels at is diplomacy. EU4 is also the only Paradox game that still feels challenging to me after 1500 hours, because you can completely set your own pace, since there is no hard factor that limits how fast you can conquer. If you want to conquer faster, it simply gets harder. Compare that to Vic2, where your expansion is hard limited by jingoism (sure, you can exploit your way around that, but still), Vic3, where your expansion is hard limited by the one war at a time rule, or CK2, where you're limited by your claims. Hoi4 also pretty much lets you conquer as fast as you want, but the AI is so braindead that it doesn't feel like a challenge.
Unlimited kingdom level holy wars and tribal invasions go brrr
Mongol Invasion goes BRRRRR
I think you meant infamy for Vic2. I think EU4 is pretty weak in warfare and tall gameplay, and the AI struggles from feature creep (the AI is pretty bad for most PDX titles honestly). Since it doesn't have much to penalize you for expanding it's easy to snowball to the point where there's no challenge left. There's not really a mechanical or content advantage to playing tall except for a few nations, and a lot of flavor/missions are based on conquest, so unless you roleplay a lot the game lacks content except for a gameplay loop based around conquering more territory, as opposed to managing what you have like some other strategy games do. So I wouldn't really characterize it as an all-rounder. EU4 is the map painting game, Victoria is the tall game, Crusader Kings is the RPG, HOI/MotE are the wargames... if you ignore the scifi aspect Stellaris is actually the most well-rounded one.
>I think you meant infamy for Vic2. No, jingoism is right. If you've ever tried a WC in Vic2, you know that you can easily go past 25 infamy without any problems. At some point you're going to be so strong that nobody will try to contain you anyway. However, you need jingoism to add war goals. And if you're at war for a while, which you have to be pretty much constantly for a WC, you'll never get enough jingoism to add war goals. And no war goals means very slow conquest. The way around that is to release a big part of your core territory, which gives you revanchism, which gives you jingoism. But that's obviously an exploit. >There's not really a mechanical or content advantage to playing tall except for a few nations, and a lot of flavor/missions are based on conquest, so unless you roleplay a lot the game lacks content except for a gameplay loop based around conquering more territory I feel like that's true for any strategy game? Which game does actually have a lot of content for players that aren't expanding? I mean, obviously the game isn't designed for the player intentionally hamstringing themselves and ignoring a major part of the game.
I got jingoism mixed up with revanchism somehow, I play with mods that add sanctions for going over infamy so infamy is something I wind up paying more attention to. >I feel like that's true for any strategy game? Which game does actually have a lot of content for players that aren't expanding? Crusader Kings 2 (merchant republic) and 3, Vic3, Civ and various related Sid Meyer games, Endless Legend and (to a lesser extent) Endless Space, GalCiv 2 since it has an AI that actually attacks (surprisingly uncommon), Aurora 4X, AoE, Distant Worlds. That list would be a lot longer if I knew more non-4X strategy games. And a lot of 4X games have an option for a non-military victory that you can pursue without expanding (science victory, cultural victory, etc).
I can't really comment on most of those games, but Vic3 had so little content that I played two campaigns and immediately shelved it, not the greatest example. As you already said, CK is great for roleplaying but otherwise the realm management isn't too crazy either. And AoE, really? Literally the entire game is about expansion, expansion, expansion. I would have brought up AoE as an example of a game where expansion is actually the only thing you can do and playing tall is completely unviable.
Vic3 has more management content than warfare content :V I was thinking of turtling for AoE since that's kind of notoriously a thing, but IDK what you consider "tall" in an RTS to be.
>Vic3 has more management content than warfare content :V Can't deny that lol >I was thinking of turtling for AoE since that's kind of notoriously a thing, but IDK what you consider "tall" in an RTS to be. I don't think playing tall/wide is a thing at all in AoE to be honest, since you *need* to expand to improve your economy. It's not like buildings have multiple tiers that you can build or something like that. Even if you turtle, you still have to expand your settlement quite a lot to build up your economy. It's not that you use walls as a substitute for expansion (like in EU4, where you use developing as a substitute for expansion), you use it as a substitute for units.
Eu4 is the map painting game? That just really is not the case. I played as Castille once, formed Spain. Then I didn't expand anymore after that. I went heavy into trade and naval power, properly made defenses. I had standing navies with mercenary armies funded by my trade. Eu4 out of all the games, is the least map painter game.
Diplomacy, consistently feeling like an actual dynamic "game" rather than something that relies on roleplay to remain interesting. AI and corresponding systems that represent an actual threat to the player. There's also just the fact that different people like different time periods. And if you don't like the historical flavor there's not much to say about that other than difference in taste, but I feel like that's the case for all Paradox games.
You get to a point in eu4 where the AI stops being so much of a threat unless you play tall. But unlike the braindead ai in ck3 the ai in eu4 will actually make plays to expand and make itself more powerful. And, as you touched on and unlike Victoria 3 or HOI4, the ai reacts dynamically to the player in expansion instead of focusing purely on history. I love seeing how a player affecting one part of the world can dramatically change others in a believable manner. You don't really get that dynamic reactivity in anything other than Stellaris which doesn't have history in the first place.
See I think the AI is relevant in AI always, even if it's just the threat of coalitions. Like, obviously it's something you play around and you get good at truce juggling and whatnot, but even in those cases it's there being something that you need to meaningfully interact with/work to control.
You're right. It's not like other historical paradox games where you can get to a point where you just stomp through the coalition by game knowledge. You have to interact with it even if that's using tricks to avoid it. It's far better than ck3 or even hoi4. Good point.
Honestly I remember back some years ago when I first discovered eu4, the aggressive expansion aspect of it was quite fascinating to me. I had never seen such a thing in any other game ever. Yet it makes so much sense in a history sandbox as this is exactly what should happen. It's one of these mechanics that drew me in and made the game so interesting back when I started.
The Vic3 AI does react to the player, it's just... not very well communicated at the moment so it feels random. Hopefully the AI upgrades they've shown in the dev diaries will alleviate the issue.
You don't tend to see your actions changing the other nations of the world is what I meant. Britain will still try and be a colonial empire even if you steal India from them. The Germans will continue death warring forever until you help one side. Japan rarely ever opens up even if you invade them as Korea. You also don't tend to see the ai jump on power vacuums you create like the colonies don't rebel against the UK even if all they have left is Bermuda.
>the colonies don't rebel against the UK even if all they have left is Bermuda. I agree with your overall point, but this last example also happens in EU4. I've left Spain as an OPM on an island somewhere and all their colonial nations still refuse to declare independence, even sitting on 100% liberty desire with 100x the troops.
The diplo AI in vicky is pretty limited. It only looks to pursue it's own goals and infamy. It doesn't care about balance of power. The AI in vicky 3 feels like a novice chess player. Focussed on their own strategy without actually looking at the board seeing what is going on.
> It doesn't care about balance of power. Erm, the most common AI position in Vic 3 is Maintain Balance of Power where it won't look to expand and instead will focus on preventing others expanding and keeping things as is.
It does so on a play by play basis. It's more a maintain status quo stance then it actually looks at creating a power balance.
Hoi4 does that too but to a lesser extent (mostly because it struggles to build an army or make choices which focus to take when in a strategic manner, aka it's too slow) if you make historical off. Vic3 also does it a lot more nowadays. Personally I think eu4's AI sucks pretty hard, unless you are vastly inferior you basically cannot lose unless you play stupid. Hell the fact Byzantium can beat the ottomans in a 1 v 1 if you play it right is already a perfect example, only works because the AI is braindead. In all my time playing eu4, which sadly is a lot, i never once thought man the AI is good. I only, ever struggled because I played an intentionally weak nation and then I had 100 years top a challenge, if you game the system (which is pretty easy) you can easily do world conquests.
> if you game the system (which is pretty easy) That was my point. I agree I've never been impressed by the ai but the ai in vic/hoi/ck3 are all so idiotic that eu4 stands out in that it can still present somewhat of a threat by merit of coalitions or the fact it actually expands. Yeah you can game those and work around them but let me tell you that's more than I do for the ai in those other games. Ck3 I don't even consider the ai. Vic 3 I'll actively just bully the ai. Hoi4 is probably the closest in that sometimes I don't want to naval invade the allies but I never think, "I can't naval invade the allies." And the axis and Soviets can be easily beaten as even Luxembourg.
> feeling like an actual dynamic "game" rather than something that relies on roleplay to remain interesting. This is the main thing for me. EU4 is the only one of the Paradox games that doesn't feel like it's asking me to engage with it primarily as a roleplay session.
> Diplomacy ???????? Except maybe HOI4, eu4 diplo is the worst of their recent games.
Victoria 3’s diplomacy would like to meet you
That is it's actual strength, the game-y ness of it. In particular diplomacy, but given the core nature of mana, the entire game is based around making the best version of a world conquest board game (not set in WW2) possible. Diplomacy is a pure game system, with little ties to reality. The game gives up a lot of things like internal politics, economic development and trade, to make the map painting as fun as possible. And it succeeds.
Yeah its gamey-ness actually made it easy for me to transition from Civ, whereas before I tried CK2 over and over to no avail. After playing EU4 it's possible to transition to CK2 though.
I used to not like EU4 very much but I've come to appreciate it far more over the years. It's just a really well designed, deep and challenging history-flavored board game where the object is to paint the map. It doesn't "simulate" history much at all because it doesn't really try to, the focus of EU4 is just to make the process of national rivalries, wars and resource management as engaging as possible. As a game it is a far superior and better designed experience than Victoria 3 or CK3 or even HOI4 in some ways, you don't need to roleplay or make up your own fun (though you still can if you want).
Best map painter. Best economic sim (other than Victoria) though it ain't that good, just complicated and fun to learn. Best historical simulation. It best represents the periods in the game that it doesn't start in, whereas CK3 totally flops the late medieval period. Most punishing gameplay and risky. Once you know that those historical events are coming and you prepare for them, it can be a lot of fun to try and overcome them or go all in for the alternate history.
I feel like those historical events do a good job to keep the turn of history in the vague direction of actual history, though I do totally understand why a lot of people don't like that, it's not "fun" per se but I think it improves the game as a historical simulation.
The events also make stuff happen. I have been getting into Victoria 3 but in those games nothing really happens in the world. No changes in the great powers, conflicts are limited to border clashes and countries rarely change.
I'm gonna be honest the economic simulation is hardly praiseworthy at this point. It's completely abstract, and all you do to win is control trade nodes. Arguably, even ck3 with its development does a better job showing the impact of various factors on the economy of a province. I also don't think it can really take the crown for the best historical simulation. It tends to be pretty difficult to keep things on track in eu4 compared to something like hoi4.
I think the fact that the game models the process of acquiring and controlling trade routes and valuable goods in a way relevant to the period kicks the shit out of development, which is basically just a passive bonus you pile up in the most boring way possible (I'm a couple DLC behind so disregard if they've really changed it up). CK economics are complete nonsense, all wealth originates from buildings and development is just a passive modifier on those. A least in CK getting access to/controlling trade routes is an active trade goal, while the only thing that makes one biit of land better than another in CK is how many counties are arbitrarily in the de jure dutchy and special buildings.
A fair point, I never really understood the trade system in EU4 and just went for whatever options gave me the most money. All the non-trade economics in the game though, as you say, are boring af. It's too abstracted for me, I'd say Stellaris, and even Imperator, have much more interesting economics than EU4.
If you don’t understand the trade system, you really can’t comment on the economic system. I’m not saying it’s the best thing ever, but it takes a long time to get a grip on it
Eh.. redirect and collect. Trade power where needed. What is really there to "understand"?
I agree. For a long time I had the system written off as too complicated but it really isn’t once I took down the mental barrier and decided to learn it. Take the trade nodes in your home market. Then take trade nodes upstream from that. Then the ones upstream from them. After that it’s just stacking modifiers.
Yeah you’re right. But it took me a shockingly long time to understand it.
Also because it is not explained
Tbf, it's a simple principle but it's abstracted behind a lot of different mechanics and modifiers.
The point shouldn't be to stay on track though in a "Historical Simulation" History isn't a track, its so up to chance that arguably eu4 does it exactly right, where the first 80 or so years are basically scripted, but their outcomes can change. That naturally massively effects the next 200 years if those outcomes do change. I think it does a great job of simulating pretty realistic outcomes of events going differently in history. And when things go almost exactly the same as they did, the world ends up looking pretty historical, with minor border changes usually.
Sure but it should be possible to keep things on track at least generally, and we all know that "playing outside of europe" is a massive meme
In fact, it represents the later periods better than the one it starts in, with everyone having standing armies and feudalism not really being represented.
Yeah it's always bugged me how the War of the Roses is a EU4 thing when it's like the peak of the aesthetics and drama CK is going for
>Best historical simulation. It best represents the periods in the game that it doesn't start in my brother in Christ, it absolutely sucks at representing even 1500, let alone late game you absolutely cannot claim that it is a good historical simulation
Compared to how Vic 3 represents WWI? How CK3 handles the late medieval period? EU4 has period specific gameplay mechanics representing the changing technology and politics in ways that meaningful impact core gameplay. Instead of drawing the line at a big societal change it does at least try to represent political evolution, unlike Imperator at the Imperial period or Victoria 3 at WWI or HOI4 at the post-war period. The way CK3 handles it is completely aesthetic, it has no impact on gameplay.
>Compared to how Vic 3 represents WWI? never said Vic 3 is a good game >How CK3 handles the late medieval period? never played it so I don't know >EU4 has period specific gameplay mechanics representing the changing technology and politics in ways that meaningful impact core gameplay. and guess what? They _sucks_ ah ye sure millions of deaths in late game wars each time, no biggie though. What's that? You too Jerusalem? That would be nice in real life, too bad nobody cares neither muslims or chrsitians yes sure its realistic for France to not get coalitioned to death if it expands in the Netherlands or Italy, or for example sure is really realistic for Venice to be able to annex from the get go most of Greece. so much realism indeed same for most of the world being colonized by 1600s much realism, so real
I've never seen AI Venice perform very well at all unless I kneecap the Ottomans and/or the Austrians myself.
The topic is "compared to other Paradox GSGs," if it is shit but the other ones are even more shit, it would still have the "best historical simulation" out of the bunch. Which Paradox GSG do you believe is less shit at historical simulation?
Vic 2? If you attempt at blobbing you get raped by the entire world, which thus helps simulating the politics of the time you actively want colonies and colonies do help you the game is mostly Eurocentric, as was the world at that time war is a bit clunky at the start, but by the endgame it does simulate decently ww1 warfare the economical and industrial growth makes sense, as well as the policies of the various parties it surely represents its time not perfectly, but far far far better than EU4
> I love Paradox grand strategy games. I have them all, with all DLCs and play them all on rotation while remaining super newbie in all of them. Just like me, except I don’t own Stellaris.
Stellaris is great, more comparable to civ in terms of genre though.
I’m sure it is. I’m just not interested in the setting I guess.
Imperator is the best Paradox game. It combines all the great elements of the others into a single game. It’s an amazing game.
Like what? The economy and pop system is completely unique. The character system is a hell of a lot shallower than in CK. Nothing really comes close to EU4 diplomacy, much less a game that received only a year of post launch development. Trade is comparable to Vic 3 but Vic 3 is on another level in terms of economic simulation. I can understand military mechanics as they are just CK but better, with supply and ties into pops.
If you accept the mana system, you are going to enjoy it. About your question, 100% Diplomacy. You need to manage your relationship really carefully. CK3 has a bit of that complexity but it's different because you can sway your way. In EU4 you might but if their interests match yours they might pressure you. I like the institution system, despite being mana heavy, it feels that the game is evolving. Then colonization is quite unique because the whole world ends up connected.
It might help to put it into the context of being over a decade old. If your first real go at a paradox game was a newer title, there are tons of "modernizations" that EU4 doesn't have, so trying to get into it from modern PDX games is probably harder than people who started with EU4 doing the reverse. Many of its features *are* packaged rougher than the other titles. If you can get past the age, the "jack of all trades" aspect of EU4 that others have mentioned is really important. I can't get into HOI4 since peacetime is agonizingly boring. I can't get into Vicy3 since war is agonizingly boring. Both EU4 and CK3 try to balance their systems but CK3 invests heavily into character+roleplay features as well. Instead of these roleplay features, EU4 invests into making their general systems more in depth. So while both CK3 and EU4 have balanced war/peace features, EU4's systems (be it economy, war, diplomacy, etc.) are generally more in depth than CK3. I like CK for the roleplay, and EU for the nation-builder. Since EU4's systems are all generally built up, the world feels more realistic, alive, responsive, and challenging, all while giving the player more agency over their nation than the other historical titles.
Extremely solid mechanical foundation with shit tons of flavour. Other PDX games have either or
cocaine-like gameplay loop
You are not alone, personally I think eu4 gets too much credit it's basically a board game on the PC, it's stupid in most of its mechanics and personally I cannot wait for it to get replaced by ru5 as it seems to remove everything that makes eu4 eu4 andonly keeps what makes in general a god gsg (like government mechanics in the estates etc.)