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Europa Universalis V review – even hardened grand strategy veterans may be startled by the intricacy of this historical simulation
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- Title
- Europa Universalis 5 sets a new bar for historical simulation complexity
- Published
- Oct 31 2025
I have almost 3000 hours played in EU4, so I am super excited for this release. As with most Paradox games, I have no doubt that the launch is going to be a bit of a mess, and the game will likely feel a bit barebones to start. However, Paradox have always been pretty good at getting all the bugs ironed out over time, and improving the gameplay with their free updates and DLC. So fingered crossed that they keep doing the same with EU5 over the coming years.
This review actually makes EU5 sound promising already though, and it hasn't hampered my excitement even though they did touch on a weak point of almost all Paradox games: The AI being kinda dogshit, which Paradox have always struggled with improving. Thankfully, the modding community has done a fantastic job of improving the AI in all their other grand strategy games (including EU4), so reading that the base game AI sucks in EU5 doesn't bother me too much since it wasn't amazing in EU4 either but I still absolutely love that game.
Would love to hear your review once you sink your teeth in!
Heh, will do. I fully intend to sink at least a few dozen hours into it this week along a few buddies who I regularly played EU4 multiplayer with, so I'll let you know what I think of it after I've had a few solo games, and we've had a few coop games together too. :)
EU4 has almost $300 worth of DLC. Paradox is known for having one of the worst policies in the industry wrt to free updates and DLC
Genuinely curious - are you just talking about the base game or being satirical?
I have nowhere near 3k hours in paradox games so I may be wrong, but even now the EU4 base game feels pretty barebones and clunky to me.
EU4 was released 12 years ago, and got sustained support for 11 of those years. That's less than $2.50 a month for a game that got regular updates and improvements. For the people for whom EU4 was one of their forever games, that's very cheap.
Not only that, but every single DLC release included a bunch of free QoL and gameplay features that were added to the base game for everyone; If anyone plays multiplayer with someone who owns a DLC then everyone in the game gets access to all that DLC's exclusive features whether they own it or not; And out of all the DLC, most are cosmetic, and only a few of the non-cosmetic ones are generally considered "essential" for new players to get due to their exclusive gameplay features... but even those are not really mandatory since the base game still works perfectly well without them (way better and more feature rich than it was at launch!). And to top it off there are also a shit ton of amazing mods, including a bunch of great total conversion ones that change the game entirely, which Paradox does a great job of enabling and supporting.
I understand why seeing all that DLC and the total pricetag of them all can be intimidating, seen as predatory or "the worst in the industry" by people with severe FOMO and unfamiliar with the game and the way Paradox DLCs actually works. But IMO it's genuinely not, and not nearly as bad as many people try to make it out to be, @VoidSage.
However, one thing I will say is that I wish Paradox would bundle up all the older DLC every few years so new players wouldn't feel as intimidated, wouldn't have to research which were actually worth getting, and could still get them all if they really wanted to without having to spend as much money in one chunk as us OG players gradually have over the many many years since the game's release.
I think that in lieu of the bundle model they're trying to have their cake and eat it too with the subscription option. That way people can try the full experience for fairly cheap, but still have to buy the bits they want if they want to not keep paying for it.
The performance issues mentioned offhandedly are worrisome. Victoria 3 still feels like a slog to play and it's in large part because the game itself doesn't run well.
It doesn't bode well for the longevity of the game when Paradox inevitably tacks on more and more baggage to an already struggling system.
I've never been fully convinced by EU5 and this review, while an 87 isn't bad, also doesn't help their case. The problems with performance and the AI are exactly the things that frustrate and chafe the longer you play.
I'll likely wait a week or two for user reviews to settle.
EU doesn't have nearly as many complex systems interacting with each other as Vicky does since it's not a hardcore economics sim like Vicky is, and so there isn't as much number crunching going on behind the scenes. So I suspect any performance issues in EU5 will get ironed out eventually like they did for EU4 and CK3 as well. That could just be wishful thinking, I suppose, but we will just have to wait and see.
Having watched Quill18 play a bit of EUV, I'm not 100% certain that the economics aren't as complex as Vicky3. There's more individual products and businesses that do need things from each other, though admittedly it doesn't look like there's individual tweaking of businesses with different supply chains and resource demands.
The biggest difference between them is the fact that there are no dynamic trade good prices in EU4. AFAIK, the only economic value that fluctuates dynamically in EU4 is a country's inflation, which only effects the cost of certain expenses. Some of the trade good values can change based on historic events that might trigger in the game, like Porcelain losing 50% of its value in ~1700 due to European's discovering its method of production, or Slaves losing 40% of their value after Abolition in ~1710. See: Price change events for more. But unlike in Vicky, trade good values don't constantly fluctuate dynamically based on local and world market conditions (Supply vs Demand). So EU4 has a LOT less to calculate every tick when it comes to the economics side of the game since everything has a relatively static value.
Oh, I'm talking about EU5, not EU4. Some early gameplay streaming took place yesterday. I'm not entirely clear on whether the prices are fixed or not, but there was varied profitability for wheat fields in different provinces within the same center of trade, and dynamic value for food based on supply and demand. I suppose we'll see in a couple of days.
Ah, I've been trying avoid reading/watching too much about the gameplay of EU5, since I didn't want to spoil anything for myself. If that's the case that trade good prices actually are dynamic in EU5 then there probably is going to be a lot more economy related number crunching going on during the game, and hopefully it doesn't lead to performance issue like Vicky 3 is still experiencing. :/
Without going too in depth, yes market prices are dynamic and you can manipulate market prices like you can in Victoria.
That, plus Pops, and their latest Clausewitz engine just starts choking.
Well, shit. Hopefully all that doesn't bog down the game too much. EU4 on speed 5 already struggles, especially in the late game.
Ive never play any EU. I'm a very casual Civ player. If I'm patient and very cheap, is EU4 base game by now a good deal to jump into, or wait another year or two after launch for EU5?
Edit: steamdb notes it goes on sale for <$10 . That satisfies both requirements for it being 3000hr good and very very cheap.
The base game of Crusader Kings 2 was made free to play a few years ago in the lead up to CK3's release. So I would definitely recommend waiting a while after EU5's launch to see if they do the same for EU4. But even if they don't make it F2P, the base game is still pretty enjoyable and well worth $10, IMO. Me and my friends used to occasionally play the base game in multiplayer when new players joined us so they could learn the basic mechanics a bit easier. And if you do end up enjoying the game, you can always temporarily subscribe to EU4's game pass ($10/mo) to access all the DLC/Expansion exclusive mechanics to determine which ones you actually want to continue to be able to use without a sub, and figure out which DLC to buy based on that.
Thanks cfabbro :) I'll wait for EU5 launch
YVW. Just fair warning that it's a pretty damn complicated game, so to learn how to play it will likely require you to watch a few tutorial videos on YouTube, and frequently dive into the wiki whilst playing. If Civ is like playing around with regular Lego blocks, EU4 is more like assembling one of those electronically controlled, motorized, Lego Technic kits. ;)
You should ask @cfabbro which combo of dlc to get as a starter pack. Idk if they've left the base game enjoyable or if you would be better served with some minimum amount of DLC. It's been years since I played EU4 so I can't speak to it. (I also logged like 700 hours though so I'd say if you're curious worth a play)
Good idea: I don't super like non cosmetic DLCs but $10 for base, I can probably spare a bit of money. Just a bit. (I cannot overstate how cheap I am when it comes to games these days because of how little I play)
They did actually include the three of the most vital DLC into the base game last year: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/free-dlcs-for-all-europa-universalis-iv-players.1701846/
Otherwise, there is this resource on reddit you could check out: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/13feee3/135_dlc_tier_list_which_dlc_to_buy/
Bret Deveaux wrote about it too:
Pretty sure this is what Paradox has been saying about several of their games for years, including Victoria 3, and that exact phrase has certainly been circulating in the EU4 community for years (whether it was the developers or the community that first came up with it, I don't know). I like Bret's analysis because he analyzes historical games as history, that's kind of his whole thing, but on rare occasions I think he would do better if he analyzed games as a gamer.
It's certainly not a new concept. Playing as the spirit of the country was a common enough response.
I feel like it's also irrelevant? You can't manage your country for several centuries if you aren't the spirit. If anything, the direction it's going with EU5 where the portrait of the ruler is always visible diminishes this element. It specifically places you as the ruler rather than the guiding hand.
A certain level of abstraction would've been for the better.
I've been one of the more skeptical voices on Tildes about EU5 and the more I think about the comment Johan made -We did not want to make EU4 2- the more I think I would've liked a EU4 2 instead.
I've greatly enjoyed things by him, but to add onto the critique of his game reviewing capabilities here:
I'm fairly certain that EU4 cuts off at 1821 (and I think always has, ignoring the "continue playing" option which is fairly recent iirc).
EU3, meanwhile, has been some years for me (I wonder why) but (driven initially by my recollection and confirmed by a quick search) was 1453-1789 at launch, pulled forward to 1399 with IN and pushed back with DW to 1821 as well.
So that "traditionally" feels rather misplaced, unless the first and second instances were that exactly...
EU2 was 1419 to 1819, and EU1 might as well not exist because no one has played it.
Seems wrong on the 1836 entirely, I imagine he's conflating it with when Victoria 1/2/3 start (1836), and assumed from that. I think by "traditionally" he was mainly thinking of the start date, which has been the 15th century pretty consistently, and this is the first time EU has really been pushed to start so far back that its kinda jutting in on the CK timeframe (if anyone playing CK actually goes the distance).
I agree re his likely conflation of the Vic start-dates and ignoring the traditional gaps between them and the EU ends.
As for the start-dates, it is certainly the earliest by some sixty years, but then EU3 did already pull into that century with a 50 year jump from its original startdate, so it isn't unheard of, I'd argue...
I agree in principle that this is quite a chunk into the CK range, but the presentation thereof was just badly done, imo.
Oh what the hell this comes out this week? I'm still neck deep in the Ck3 Expo. Guess it's easier for me to wait for the inevitably needed patches lol.
While I'm pretty intrigued (I'm also in the almost 3000 hours camp for EUIV) and have followed almost all the development diaries through the years, I'm disappointed they explicitly have not committed to any support for Linux or Mac, which recent games like CK3 and Victoria apparently did. I would have to hope for Proton to work here.
With my other reservations about performance, apparent lack of polish, weak AI-competency and (this is very subjective, of course) uninspiring UI-style, I'm torn on whether to buy not. I guess I might wait for Linux-user reviews and also for them to iron out some bugs in the first months after release.
... which sucks, because the foundation of the game seems very exciting. The scope is epic, and I love how they went on communicating very openly, considered their community a resource and took risks by openly developing this as a magnum opus of sorts. This should be rewarded! I really hope they hit the mark and build smartly on that foundation for a decade to come. If they do, I'm at serious risk of even buying into their DLC policy again.