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New Post has been published on http://www.nerdtitan.com/2013/09/07/making-history-your-playground-a-review-of-europa-universalis-iv/
Making History Your Playground: A Review of Europa Universalis IV
Alright, after reading everything I just wrote for this review, I would like to note right away that this will veer all over the place and take you… places. Just like Europa Universalis IV, one of the best and most immersive video games released in the last five years takes you places.
GAME TYPE: Grand strategy; no decapitations, no car-jacking.
PUBLISHER: Paradox Interactive
OPERATING SYSTEM LOVE: PC, Mac, Linux
AMAZEBALLS LEVEL: Eleven out of nine Amazeballs.
GRIPES: Not many. If any, really.
WOULD RECOMMEND?: Yes. OH GOD YES.
THE COPY: “Paradox Development Studio is back with the fourth installment of the their empire building game series that defined the Grand Strategy Genre. Europa Universalis IV gives you control of a nation to guide through the years in order to create a dominant global empire. Rule your nation through the centuries, with unparalleled freedom, depth and historical accuracy.
The experiences of true exploration, trade, warfare and diplomacy will be brought to life in this epic title rife with rich strategic and tactical depth. Prepare to join a worldwide community of over half a million players and experience the drama and tension that only the grand stage of history can provide. Following on the success of the critically acclaimed strategy/RPG Crusader Kings II, Paradox Development Studio is ready to take you to worlds both old and new – each yours for the taking.” More copy here.
Pictured: My happy place.
I have just had one of the best experiences of my life. I laughed, I cried, I informed my partner happily as something brain-consumingly wonderful became a part of me.
And with the ups come the downs, and my childlike innocence and joy at making the Livonian Order pay was soon upset by a bunch of goddamned Danziger peasant rebels leaving Polish territory into the Lithuanian Empire that I HAD BEEN BUILDING UP FOR A CENTURY AND THERE THEY WERE JUST MESSING IT ALL UP– what? Oh, right. The review.
I have been playing the heck out of Europa Universalis IV, a new video game offering from the dark gods who are lovingly known as Paradox Interactive. Now, before we go on, you need to know that this game is DEEP. And by “DEEP” I mean that you will lose yourself into a hole so massive and awesome that you may not return for weeks. Your family will wonder what happened to you. Your spouse and friends and cat and/or dog will nod at your comments, as if “Doesn’t Norway KNOW it was born to be my vassal?”, “ARRRGH PEASANTS”, “Venice will know my trade mastery!”, and “the dream of an Albanian Imperium is one crafted from tears” are all normal things normal people say. They will placate you and they will soothe you, for you will be living the game. Your mind will fill in all kinds of gaps while you wait for a bit, as sometimes trade and growth just need to happen…
Now, before I go on, there are some excellent reviews of EUIV out there already, all of them great reviews from great people, and all of them seem to focus on different angles of play. Here, I’ll link to a few: PC Gamer, Joystiq, IGN, Gamespot, and my personal favorite Destructoid.
People, that guy from Destructoid is someone I can relate to. He freaking loves this game as I do. It is an unabashed and almost insane love.
Playing the newest offering in a long line of Grand Strategy heavy hitters from Grand Strategy Station masters Paradox Interactive is… a very involving experience, to say the least. I have already mentioned it’s deep, but you will be taking notes, and perhaps even doing things like I do and having a laptop open so you can look things up without having to pause the game and look things up in the Steam web browser.
Now, let me be very, very clear about one thing: This is NOT a Total War game. I truly love the Total War games, but they are mostly about conquest (if the “Total War” thing wasn’t a complete giveaway). The Europa Universalis games, especially IV, is more about dynasty, true power, and legacy. I mean, when was the last time a Total War game gave you a restless night’s sleep over inflation rates? Holy cowpoop, inflation rates are the devil! Only a fellow EUIV player would understand and sympathize with this. And every player of EUIV has their own way of playing and their own resulting experiences.
Me, I’m a Conquering Expansionist. I always prefer having everything feed my military machine. I greatly enjoy having historically unlikely peoples rise up and righteously beat some ass. But it’s hard. Very hard. Even as a great power– which many folks have said already are the preferred starting points– keeping it all together with an iron fist is bloody, sweaty, revolting work.
Soon it will be covered in angry, angry peasants. Sigh.
By “revolting” I mean at some point in, say, your Great Lithuanian Empire of Awesome, peasants and heretics will stop popping up liked cracked out moles and you have to whack the shit out of them. And then more pop up. And then you’re saying “screw this” and reloading an old save game file. Which brings me to two small complaints which are totally not deal breakers… I wish there was a simpler option to handle angry population issues; like more of a handle on taxation and appeasing those agitated bastards. I also wish that reloading the game didn’t take so long. This latter gripe could be an issue on my end, though, and like I said, it’s no deal breaker.
Some players out there are more into what we historians might refer to as the “true power route”, which means trading, marriages, and exploiting any opportunity your neighbors give you to turn them into vassal states. EUIV makes sure you take a prestige hit when you decide that having everyone you’ve gobbled up into your empire should run their own affairs, but non violent maniac rulers (unlike myself) will get more satisfying mileage out of the “true power route”, quietly biding their time and consuming others through culture, not pike and shot.
Everything will cost you in EUIV.
Even France.
Wow, I could write an entire book about my experiences with EUIV! Anyhow, here are the basics, before I get TOO far ahead of myself, and, more importantly, you.
Akin to many games before it, Europa Universalis IV is essentially a very pretty “spreadsheet game”. The interface is a nice step up from the previous EU game ( the soul-crushingly awesome EUIII), with management of things getting taken care of with cursor-hovering-text and drop-down menus. Battles are rather abstract, and you just see a single dude represent your armies as you pray to anyone who will listen that their morale meter doesn’t run out (and it’s very embarrassing to lose a 30,000 man army to 4000 enemies!). Nearly every aspect of your society is controlled in some manner; from trade, to military, to vassals, to religion, to diplomacy and technology development. Everything runs quite slowly, as it does in the real world, but you can speed things up and slow them down and even pause them at will (and you will pause the game A LOT). There are a variety of different map modes which focus on various aspects of the areas you control; wealth, taxation, political, topographical, risk of revolt, and so on. They are all very informative and useful– so useful, it is a crying shame I prefer the  political map mode because the default map is so damned gorgeous, with a zoomable camera so you can get in real close and see snow on the mountains and rivers and such.
“Time to make Riga PAY, boys!”
Your game will begin in 1444 and end in 1821. You can pick from oodles of factions, powers, states, and countries from all over the world; some massive bruisers (England and France), and others almost laughably tiny (Bali, Kanem-Bornu, and even the Knights Hospiltaller) You will try to marry your way into other kingdoms and powers, and they will do the same back. You will form alliances, and you will agonize over breaking them when the power you are allied with wants to get their war on with a mad powerhouse that you simply cannot tangle with at that time (sorry, Denmark!). While you can edit files to change the timespan of the game, four centuries of post-feudal mayhem are all you need, most likely. You can decide to play the game from start date to end date, or you can pick from a number that also equals the total of Soviet time zones: That little known year 1492 and whatever went along with it, the Thirty Years’ War, the Seven Years’ War, the American War of Independence, or that hubbub which occurred in France in the latter 18th century; with more scenarios listed in detail here.
Europa Unversalis IV also has “Monarch Points” which can be earned, broken down into Administrative, Diplomatic, and Military categories, and spent as you see fit. The things you control things through are all ramped up by accumulation of these points, to put it as bluntly as possible, and you can earn Monarch Points in myriad ways. You can lose them in countless other ways, as well. I am a master of hemorrhaging Monarch Points, surprisingly. (I may need help.)
Since the advent of Europa Universalis III, the amazing Clausewitz Engine (no doubt named for this guy) silently yet mightily hums beneath most of the Paradox Grand Strategy Stable’s hoods. This new version of the game engine, first seen (though slightly different, of course) in games like Victoria II and Crusader Kings II is worthy of many a parade. Everything seems to work nicely together, albeit it can get frustrating and boggy to newcomers, I’m guessing.
So, newcomers to EUIV, you are in for a full relocation experience, not a gaming holiday, okay? This is a game you don’t just pick up and play right off the bat. This game could be taught as a sophomore level university class. You need to take deep breaths, be patient, and make it a part of you as you become a part of it. It’s not for everyone, which should go without saying. Though I feel most people reading this review are or will read the other reviews I have linked to, and probably already have a huge history crush already. What I am saying is that it helps to be a nerd amongst nerds to want to dive right into this batch of ravenous nerd-sharks, all of whom are intent on tearing up all of your nerd glee and making you love every single second of it. Even when you get pissed off at the game (my better half is always amused/annoyed by my occasional shouting of “WHAT? I don’t even! I hate you!” at my monitor), you will love that it pissed you off. You will send it thank you gifts.
The thank you gifts I send are wrapped in the skins of my enemies, like those goddamned Swedish jerkfaces who think Finland is theirs, by the way. (Finland will always have Steve, The God-Emperor of the Lithuanian Empire as their heart!)
While there were suggested peoples and places to start with in EUIV, I decided to do it my own way, and here are my brief thoughts on those (terrible) decisions:
Sweden: Since Paradox is out of Sweden I started my EUIV experience here. I had my ass fully handed to me quicker than I could say “Horunge”. I chose, at this point, to bone up on EUIV a bit.
Aachen: Whilst studying up, I remembered from my hilarious Trieste and Slovenia Victoria II runs that I could open up console commands and cheat. So that’s what I did. The Empire of Aachen was a fine, but messy, nod to the area where I grew up (Aachen/Limburg).
I’m Aachen to invade your Köln.
Lithuania: This is where I learned the game proper. I am a massive fan of Lithuanian and Polish history, so I couldn’t pass this up. Sadly, I focused on expansion and spanking Novgorod as much as possible, and ensuring the Livonian Order would live on in history as soiled pants. What I should have been doing was focusing on Poland and becoming one with The Poland and forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth so I (uh, I mean we) could hand Sweden its ass. And Muscovy. And Crimea. (Hey, Crimea river, okay?)
I will not let my subjects do the vassal thing again, though.
Unfortunately, I lost control of my populous with all of my so-called “aggressive expansion” and they started popping up and revolting like mad. Bastards. This made it become a bit of a frustrating slog, but I still love it. Still playing through this one.
Inca: EUIV allows you to start off in other places of the world, too. As historically, they’re not the best places in terms of global imperialist expansion in the 15th and 16th centuries. This is where cheating comes in. You almost have to cheat because after you destroy that one little Non-Incan province, you will do decades of waiting around doing… well, nothing. Even with All The Cheating, it is still a right bugger to expand Steve’s Incan Empire of Fists beyond the Americas. It’s a lot of fun, though. Portugal hates me SO much. Ireland will become an Incan holding soon. This pleases me.
This is just the start!… after 50 years of cheating…
Cherokee: Interestingly enough, one can also play North American First Nations peoples, too, and I chose Cherokee. This was a complete and utter disaster as I started brawling with my neighbors immediately. It’s actually rather shameful to talk about this bout of gaming any further.
The only downside to the African and Native American peoples is that they need to be fleshed out more through some downloadable content (DLC). I was also amused by the European names for areas that are shown pre-European discovery. But that’s a minor thing, and knowing Paradox, I’m sure they will have packs that flesh out the more “historically exotic” factions.
Ah, this reminds me of my American Zulu Empire in Victoria II– good times.
 My hope is that Paradox does something like Sunset Invasion, except you get to be the Aztecs! That was the biggest disappointment for that Crusader Kings II DLC– I couldn’t be the Aztec Empire coming across the sea to burn Europe to the ground and drown any survivors in skulls. Or bring them cool Mesoamerican culture. I’m not picky.
Pictured: My kinda diplomacy!
Another aspect of EUIV that is a welcome familiarity is the intensely endearing and rabid fanbase. I bet some of you are reading this right now. I salute you, fantastic gentlepeople! There are few games out there with this much developer AND fan support. When you start playing EUIV, for instance, you will need the EUIV Wiki. It grows more and more with each passing day. Here, this Beginner’s Guide is required reading, along with the well written manual Paradox already provide.  Then there are all the fan-made guides, of which there are too many to list, but they are easily found with quick searches and through Steam. Speaking of fans and Steam, one player made an incredible suggestion guide on how to successfully play Albania.
See, part of what makes Albanian history interesting is that it’s so heartbreaking. They really get the short end of the proverbial stick often throughout the ages, but a guide on how to make Albania great without having to cheat? It starts with “So you want to play as Albania? You are a madman plain and simple.” Indeed, this is a treasure of the internet.
Let your freak Albanian flag fly!
And holy crap, their flag is COOL.
There are all kinds of guides listed, including one with tips on how to best play the Cherokee. Damn, I should have read that first before playing them. I caused the Great Creek Uprising of Doom Shame to occur instead.
Great Nappy’s Steel Balls, I am going to have to end this cavalcade of word salad at some point soon, so I had better sum up. If I keep chasing every single thing I think of right now, we will be here for a long, long time. Well, longer that we already have, I mean.
All in all, EUIV is an engrossing experience. Yeah, I know I’ve already said this, but it will swallow your soul whole. It has gorgeous graphics and an intensely complex yet incredibly fun game engine and interface. Even getting your ass kicked in Europa Universalis IV is rewarding. And the details, oh my! From some ludicrously oft overlooked historical facts, to cool historical references popping up (I about peed myself in terror when the Hussites started making demands!), to the inspired soundtrack. Everything about this game has been tailor made for Grand Strategy Aficionados. I know I’ve read elsewhere that Paradox is trying to appeal to non-grandstrat grognards, but I feel they have managed to please both camps. If you want to start a brand new path to insane grandstrat bliss, this is the perfect place to drop boots down on first, sharpen some peasants’ teeth, start blasting away at atrocious inflation rates, and sweat cannon balls over even the slightest loss in prestige.
For all you hardcore grognard grognerds out there who have breathed, ate, and shat grand strategy and Paradox Interactive your whole lives– with your idea of winding down being booting up For the Glory; or maybe you threw a release party for March of the Eagles– this is still for you! There is something for everyone who enjoys strategy to be found in EUIV. Yes, even Hearts of Iron fangeeks will feel at home with EUIV.
If you are a person who only enjoys game-types such as Saints Row, GTA, Halo, and Call of Duty, you will most probably dislike this game. It would be safe to say this game is not for you. But, hey, if you want to try diving in to grand strategy, especially if you’ve already whet your appetite with a Total War game, please, by all means start with EUIV.
Pfffft, prominent men. Ignore them.
EUIV is wicked, in both senses of the word. Even on an Easy setting, it will wickedly punish the foolhardy. As you learn from your mistakes, you will become better, more sound in your choices, and you will quickly appreciated how wicked (as in “wicked awesome”) Europa Universalis IV is not only as video game, but as a chunk of your life that you’ve lived through. The production quality is top notch, the AI adorably unrelenting, and the research involved for both developers and players is at fever pitch academic levels. I love it. I goddamned love it so goddamned much.
I love you, Europa Universalis IV. Alas, I don’t know if my Canadian Lord Empress would allow us to marry. Perhaps we can have our diplomats hammer out a deal between our heirs? Or are you okay with me handing you the Hanseatic League on a platter?
I haven’t gotten the chance to play multiplayer, but it supports up to 32 would-be worldshakers and worldbreakers, and I hear good things about it. I was given the Crusader Kings II to EUIV Game Converter, too, but I will review that particular item in the near future (perhaps along with multiplayer!)… if I can just keep Wales together enough to make it through CKII and have it soldier on through to glorious a future in EUIV… “Y Unedig Steve Unol Cymru” has a nice ring to it, don”t you think?
I would like to thank the terrific staff at Paradox Interactive for providing us with a review copy of EUIV and many other materials that made reviewing this game as much fun as playing it!
Images presented are either screenshots from my own gameplay, from Wikipedia, or graciously provided by Paradox Interactive.
