Lost my kids, wife, and job but I restored the Byzantine Empire to it's former glory.

10/10

Lost my kids, wife, and job but I restored the Byzantine Empire to it's former glory.



10/10

This game is a black hole which will consume you entirely. You'll find yourself answering questions about geography and history with ease while lesser mortals cry with confusion.

10/10 would waste another lifetime playing.

France annexes half of Spain and everyones cool with it. I take 2 provinces from pommerania and it sparks a world war.

10/10 would cry again

Umm.. Look how many hours I have played....

In Europa Universalis IV you play a powerful sorcerer that acts as the "guiding hand" for the nation. The spells you cast draw on three mana pools: Paper Mana, Bird Mana, and Sword Mana. Bird mana is used to make peace deals, genocide cultures, and stop your people from whining about war weariness. Paper mana, in combination with a gold sacrifice, can be used to cast construction spells, in addition to making a province you gained two years ago a core part of your nation somehow. Sword mana is used for enchanting rebel factions to keep them in line. You generate mana for these pools by sucking the life essence from your monarch and his cabinet of advisors. Be careful, though, as the ones that generate the most mana tend to die rather quickly. You'll frequently see your 6/4/5 monarch die by age 30.

You'll notice that most of the spells are involved with either war or keeping your people from whining about war. Don't worry, that's by design. There's nothing to do if you aren't at war.

10/10 it's okay

Basically a map colouring simulator where genocide, slavery and exploitation of natives in America and Africa is encouraged.

12/10 would remove kebab again.

Oppressing Natives and killing the French is generally illegal these days. This game is my only way of fulfilling my true hobbies.

10/10 its ok

A rather complex grand strategy game, you pick a country to control starting from the year 1444 all the way to 1821. There isn't any fixed objective to aim for: it's a good idea to try to get the achievements offered (such as world domination), as most are a real challenge to earn.

Each country is divided into provinces, allowing movement of you armies from one to another in real time - nothing here is turn based. Battles aren't controlled by you, as in total war: you make your army walk onto the same province as an opposing army, and the battle outcome is decided in part by random dice rolls, and in part by factors you can influence, such as generals, terrain, morale of troops. The same can be said for naval battles, where different types of ships behave differently depending on what sea province you are fighting in, if they are in the open ocean, or in a closed sea (such as the Mediterranean).

Diplomacy is fairly well fleshed out, countries can have a number of different governments, such as feudal monarchies or merchant republics, all that give different bonuses and maluses, and some (such as republics) offer the possibility to choose what type of leader you want, so as to give you more of a certain type of monarch points. You can offer alliances, royal marriages, support rebels, create false claims on provinces you don't own to give you a "casus belli" (a reason to go to war) among other things, the list is really really huge.

Monarch points are a "limiting factor" in the game, you have 3 different types of monarch points (Administrative, Diplomatic, Military), each that serve different purposes. For example, military points can be spent to buy a new general, or to treat a province harshly if rebels a likely to rise up there. Other points can be used to change your capital, annex vassals, gain provinces in peace deals, create buildings and much more. The gain of monarch points depend on your ruler, that can give from 0 points each to 6 point each month. By spending some of your income, you can also hire advisors, that can add to your monthly monarch points income, and grant you some nationwide bonuses.

Trade is also a large factor in the game, you have merchants and you can choose to send them to various trade nodes, and you can choose if you want them to try and collect money from that node with a malus, or to send the money that you collect upstream, to a different node where you can collect from. Having colonies and trade agreements with other countries helps your trade income, while being embargoed reduces your trade in nodes that the country embargoing you controls.

Paradox has created a lot of DLC for this game, but with each DLC comes a vast amount of free content as well, so it might be advisable to buy the base game before buying DLC, so as to see what you think about the game before commiting too much. If you choose to play online with a friend that owns the DLCs, even without owining the DLCs yourself, the game activates them, so its possible to try them out before you buy. It would also be a good idea to try and watch a tutorial beforehand (Arumba on youtube comes to mind), as the game doesn't do a great job of explaining all it has to offer.

It's a very time-consuming, and occasionaly frustrating game, but I found that the more I played it, the more I enjoyed it: I'm constantly learning new things I can use to my adantage, and the game is becoming more satisfying due to that.

I masturbate to maps now.

I used to live a productive life.

For some reason, all the teachers in school acted like genocide, imperialism, and exploitation of indiginous peoples was a bad thing.

They were wrong.

Never thought that a strategy game would be the most thrilling gaming experience I have.

But scrupulous, hour long planning and carefully forging alliances and marriages, while keeping an eye on which direction rival countries are sending their diplomats to, because one wrong move can turn your plans to dust, is much more addictive than you might think. The relief you feel, after a long term plan of yours is finally set into successful motion, is not describable.

One of the few games where careful planning and thinking is actually rewarded. No simple rock-paper-scissors battles like in other strategy games. Even though my enemy may have the bigger and more advanced army, I might have won the war through logistics already.

Everything that needs to be said about this game, has actually been said already, but I just can't pass on the chance to show my appreciation for it. I'm +90hrs in, and I'm still finding new ways to play this game, everytime I start it up. It's complex, deep and rewards the player that thinks on a larger scale. One of the best purchases I made in years.

its ok.

A comet ruined my empire.

Would empire again.

I enslaved most of the known world and committed mass cultural genocide. White man simulator 2014.

10/10 would oppress again

I wouldn't recommend this game because it brutally murdered my social life.

I have played this game over 20 hours more than Dark Souls, which was my most played steam game for a long time, so it's 20 hours better, even though I don't know what 1 hours equals in review points. At least it has a higher metahour score in my library. This the Dark Souls of Grand Strategy Games, since you need a Dark Soul to play it, at least in MP.

If you don't recommend this review I will have to annex you

Two words. NORWEGIAN BRAZIL.

15/10

After playing this game I can only get hard by forcing Austria to revoke imperial reforms.

Please help.