Its a great game and easy to manage for beginners. But Victoria and HOI Series is a bit more complex and makes more fun.
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Well, sure the game is great, Paradox is doing a great job with their strategy francises. The tutorial will tell you most gameplay mechanics and additionally I recommend you to play a game on easy with a rather big nation like Castille, France or England, just to see how it works. [Note that the game is still not easy as pie for you then] :P
After you played that for like 20+ hours you can start real game then.
Replayability is given, you can conquer Asia, explore the new world or reunite the HRE or whatever you want, most nations have individual national missions.
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Never played EU IV, so any specific advice would be nonsense. But I've played hundreds of hours in their other games, so maybe some general advice would be useful.
Generally playing Paradox games you start out completely confused, there is so much going on, so much information to take in. What is going on with my country/whatever? What am I supposed to do? How do I do it? Screen after screen of stuff with no idea what is the vital information and what is the meaningless flavour text. Many people will poke a few buttons or scroll through the map, fiddle around a few minutes then quit forever. :)
If you try to play, expect to be confused for a long time. Things will happen, messages will pop up, and you will have no idea what it means or why you should care. Generally Paradox games have a manual that's good for a general overview, but quickly becomes obsolete or incorrect with patches and addons. And the tutorials are pointless, maybe you learn the location of some interface items, but for playing the game forget it! :)
If you keep playing, (and failing, and restarting, and trying again) you will gradually begin to understand what's going on, how to play, why various things are happening. Once you understand the game well enough to do things, you can experience the higher-order levels of frustration. Maybe you defeat an enemy, but the increased military spending wrecks your economy. Maybe your carefully built up kingdom fall apart when your useless heir takes over. Maybe your advance stalls due to low supply or terrible infrastructure.
At that point, some people decide they are simply bad at the game, or the game sucks, or there's so many other games to play... :) But a few lucky ones discover the wonderful resource, the Paradox Interactive forums. Register your game, ask questions, and see a real human answer. Everything that confuses you also confused them. All the problems you have, they had them too. These guys love the games, and want to help you love it too. :)
Good luck!
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This is a very good post. Very realistic for expectations.
My only additional caveat (with the disclaimer that I have not specifically played EUIV yet) would be...
Paradox makes amazing and complex games, but they have really, really, really terrible tutorials(I couldn't even finish the CKII tutorial when I bought it because they hadn't patched it along with the game - which was acknowledged by the community), NO in-game support/manuals/indexes, and the forum community can be very helpful, but they can also be condescending, aloof, and sometimes ignoring. They will blame you for any expressed frustration, so be ready.
Just be prepared to spend many hours learning to play the games with almost no help from Paradox themselves and with spotty help from the community.
All that being said, I really enjoyed CKII a lot more than previous releases I had played on disc (EUIII, Victoria). Interface was better (still not good), gameplay was more engaging, and things were easier to figure out.
Bottom line: Great games with lazy/shitty support from Paradox that will be excused by their fan base relentlessly.
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Are there multiple winning conditions? In Civilization, you could conquer the world with military, diplomacy, religion, space program... Can you even win in EU? What is "winning"?
Are the events random? Can they be influenced? Does the game play different enough when you choose England or Golden Horde?
Can you build something other than military?
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No. There is no "winning" as determined by the game.
And yes, you can definitely create non-military buildings/units.
Yes, you will experience different (very) gameplay with different starting countries/leaders. You'll experience different gameplay even with the same starting country.
Be careful bringing up the "C word" around Paradox diehards, though. You'll be branded a neophyte and a "softie". ;)
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Lol. I'm sure. There's always someone to look down on for something. :)
Still very fun to set your own goals and see if you can reach them, IMO.
At least I enjoy it.
And o
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Speaking only for myself, playing the EU series isn't about painting the map a single colour - although I think most of us start playing that way. Once you have enough experience with the game, you will be able to start with a small country, dangerous neighbours, and gradually improve your situation to the point where you're no longer in any danger.
So now what? Generally these games are a sandbox - you "win" by reaching whatever goals you set for yourself. I've played hundreds of hours of EU games, and never seen the finish line. I know there's an end-date somewhere in the early 19th century, but there's no way I'd be able to maintain interest in the game that long.
As for specific game-defined victory conditions - I believe in EU4 you accumulate points during the game for having high ranks in something and when you quit or reach the end date, that score is compared to scores of various historical empires. Superficially that sounds a bit like Civilization, but not having played the game I can't tell you how it all feels or works in practice. Sorry! :)
There are many events, many are random, and many can be influenced. Generally an event has certain preconditions and a base chance to happen, with other conditions increasing or decreasing that chance. The game will roll the dice periodically, and if you get the lucky number the event triggers.
These events are all in plain text files, and with a bit of work you can poke around and understand how the whole thing works. As you can imagine, this design lends itself well to modding - there's a ridiculous number of modders for Paradox games. Once you've registered a game in the Paradox forum, you gain access to the modding sub-forum for that game, and can experiment with whatever sounds fun.
The game plays differently depending on many things - different countries begin with different ideas, maybe your soldiers fight better, or your merchants trade better, etc. Also, choosing a country surrounded by powerful enemies is different than starting elsewhere with a huge army and weak neighbours. Also, a country inside the Holy Roman Empire will play differently than some country elsewhere.
Was going to keep typing but I just checked the steam store. There's a Europa Universalis IV Demo so try it yourself and see! You might love it, or you might hate it and save $10. :)
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Do you make your own objectives, or does the game give them to you? I know you have certain missions, but are they random or preset?
Thanks for the info on the demo - it's a small download, so I'm getting it right now. Completely forgot about it... Should be able to do something with the demo before the Humble offer expires.
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I love "grand strategy" games, but I've been put off by the steep learning curve of Paradox games. Hearing about the game from you folks made me finally decide to enter a giveaway for EU IV at the last second, and I actually won. Looks like I've got my introduction to Paradox games, now. Thanks for the encouragement, guys! D
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oh wow what, wasnt that some time ago? I know because i have it on wishlist and it shows purple. Nevertheless, i bought it from humble store, played a bit of EU 3 before. Even if i get bored of it quickly, for 10$ its not a big deal. But i hope that won't be the case.
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Well... I got the demo.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
But it's 2 in the morning and I was very lucky to have my ruler die without a heir, because I need to go to bed.
I... I don't think I'll be purchasing this game. I have a gigantic backlog that I'm starting to tackle, and when I'm working (on vacation right now), I get up shortly after 5 AM.
Too dangerous. Way too dangerous.
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Extremely replayable... However.. Steep learning curve.. if you don't want a challenging game or a game you have to learn. Don't bother with it.
But, If you want a extremely fun game that your willing to learn.. then this game is it.
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So, EUIV is at massive discount on the Humble Store and I'm considering picking it up, because I like strategy games.
That said - I have never played any Paradox titles. No previous EU titles, no HOI, no CK, no Victoria. I'm a blank slate when it comes to Paradox.
I've spent a couple of hours watching EUIV videos on YouTube, and I still have no idea whether to buy the game or not. Those videos don't seem to even scratch the surface, and I'd probably have to spent tens more hours to get a general idea of how a complete playthrough plays out (I'm guessing it's 20-40 hours per playthrough). I also can't figure out (yet) how much difference there is between different playthroughs; is the game vastly different when you start in Asia, compared to Europe? Is there enough depth in replayability?
Any insight from EU players would be more than welcome.
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