Europa Universalis IV

It has been a long, long time since I got this genuinely excited about a game. It even got to the point where friends and acquaintances were remarking that maybe I should calm down when I talked about it. The last time I got this riled up about a game I was playing Shogun: Total War for the first time.

Europa Universalis IV as its name clearly suggests is the fourth game in its franchise, a well liked franchise with a dedicated following as I found out. The game was developed and published by the Swedish Paradox Development Studio and their parent company Paradox Interactive respectively. The game like most of its peers in the real time strategy genre is a PC exclusive, it can however be played on Linux, Windows and Mac OS.

Everything in this game took me by surprise, that was due to my total ignorance of it though. I had previously assumed it to be a pretty bare bones ugly and silent game. I was quickly shown the error of my ways as the richly detailed maps (There are over 22 maps that can be used in the base game) something that just gets me in all the right places while at the same time you get epic musical classics from the era blaring the background adding a sense of urgency, gravity and just all around epicness at the same time. I had also assumed it took a turn based approach to its gameplay like all other strategy games, it did not, it has a constant progression of time going from one day to the next which might not seem like much until you realize the game starts in 1444 and ends in 1822. All of these aspects are not the core draw of the game, although they do make the game more appealing.

My second assumption of the game is that it would mostly be more of the same when it came to strategy games. This also was quickly proven wrong as I played the game. Now, while I honestly can't call the system in place within the game as unique I can say with some certainty that it does have some unique aspects and the gimmick it has going for it that makes it quite compelling and a legitimate alternative to other strategy games. One of the more unique aspects that I personally liked in the gameplay was the manpower was made finite, your country can't go to war forever since you don't have an infinite population, people will die and you will have to wait months and years to recover from it. Unless you are Russia, then you can just throw peasants at people forever until you get bored, that is the benefit of a large population though. A second aspect I loved was the fact that diplomacy was made a two road system instead of the singular relationship it is in most other strategy games. What I mean by this is that your relationship with every other country is divided into two categories, 'how they feel about you' and 'how you feel about them' with all diplomatic efforts being effected by how these two factors add up. I personally saw many occasions where my attempts to negotiate with a country were thwarted due to the fact that my nobility didn't like them and vice versa as well. As a whole its a system I just love and hope gets implemented in other games as well as it just made the diplomatic aspect of the game seem that much more real. These are just aspects within the larger system of the game though along with the economics and research management you will be doing as you play. All these factors come together to give the player a brilliant strategy experience. This experience is for the most part quite macro in its scope even when its compared to other strategy games like the Civilization or the Total War franchises. That is what makes it brilliant though, you are being tasked with the top management responsibilities of a country with your entire scope being focused on strategic decision making in every aspect (culture, technology, economy, military, diplomacy) , decisions that could make or break it in its quest to not only survive but thrive through hundreds of years of history.

Here is a game of mine as Japan.

I do want to make something very clear though ending the review. The game isn't confined to Europe. You can actually play as anyone in the world. You want to be the Aztecs then go right ahead, you want to be the Mongols then you are good to go, you can literally be whoever you want to be and that is such so much fun since you can create situations that never happened in history and live out you own fantasy. I don't know if the team at Paradox knew this before making the game but the use of real countries and timelines will allow you to project yourself into the game so easily even if you only have a tiny interest in these states and it just makes the game that much deeper and challenging since the varied states have their own technological and development trees.

Europa Universalis is a game that really took my by surprise. Yes, that was pretty much due to my ignorance of the series. But I feel like I discovered a masterpiece. Everything within the game just gels so well together it creates the grandest of experiences on so large and so long a scale no game can really match it in what it has set out to do. No game even really can try to match since they all focus on victory. Europa focuses on playing the game, its focuses on riding the waves of history through both its high points and its low points. Can you survive the ebb and flow of time?