The recent news in the domain of grand strategy is that Paradox finally officially announced Europa Universalis 5. With me warming up towards Paradox grand strategy games, I might want to play that. But, amongst the complete range of Paradox series, Europa Universalis is the most complex one. And I never played any of the previous games of the series. Then I saw that with the EU5 announcement came a big Steam sale, and I decided to risk $12 on the Europa Universalis 4 “Starter Edition”, which includes the base game, and apparently the most essential DLCs. That would give me the opportunity to try out this game, which both makes it easier to decide whether I actually want to try EU5 when it comes out, and if I do gives me at least some basic understanding what Europa Universalis games are about.

Having said that, I am still at the stage of looking at EU4 tutorial videos, because this game is a lot more complex than Victoria 3 or Crusader Kings 3, both of which I already have a decent understanding of. In fact, most tutorial games simply ignore big chunks of the game mechanics, just because that would overload a tutorial. EU4 simulates a great many things, some of which aren’t overly important or necessary to deal with before getting some sort of fun game experience going. I’m not sure I like that, I tend to be afraid that a game mechanic I don’t understand and therefore ignore is ultimately going to break my neck. On the other hand, I don’t see how I could get started at all without willfully ignoring a large chunk of the game, as it is definitely too complex to understand in advance.

The ultimate question I have about Europa Universalis 4 (and by extension 5), is whether in the end there is still enough of a fun game in there somewhere. Or whether it is a great simulation of complex historical systems, which is too complex to derive enjoyment from.