You can kind of do that yourself. Boot up total war to simulate important battles in your campaign and then use console commands to make the result of the total war battle happen in EU4
@@paradoxexpress6976 It isn’t the same. It’s hard to expand to exactly the same extent, and have the same battles. I would easily pay 60 dollars (plus 300 worth of expansion over 10 years) for a Total War/EU combination.
For anyone who has second thoughts about all the systems in the game, try Crusader Kings 3 first. It is really new player friendly, but still has the same amount of moddability and replayability, and will get your feet wet before you start EUIV
I second this. i am actually comming from ck3 myself, have played both stellaris and hoi4 but ck3 is the game that has taught me the paradox formula. been wanting to try both victoria 2 and eu4 but as victoria3 is only a month away i decided to go for this.
@@Fightsome64 I tried EU4 first and was overwhelmed, then when CK3 came out, the formula really clicked and I got it. Now all the other titles are much easier to grasp. Waiting for Vicky 3, have it preordered and ready to go.
@@Ghall2708 Hey yeah its definitely still a Paradox title that requires some help via YT vids etc. but the basics are not hard. You need money to do everything, but your land can only do so much so you need to go get more. Attack neighbors that aren't closely allied with other neighbors or marry off your kids and wait for inheritance. Press claims etc.
As much as I love EU4, it has been challenging for me to even start the game. This is coming from someone who has been playing CK2, EUIII (with mods D&T, MEIOU etc), Vicky1, Vicky2, HoI2, HoI3, HoI4. The steel hill to climb that I see is the sheer abundance of parameters I feel I need to understand before I can gain any control over them that will make me capable of making any impact. There is also a guilty pleasure of having such complex interfaces and controls available, which adds significant depth, unlike any other game. Overhaul mods make the game all the more compelling with additional mechanics, further increasing complexity and depth. I just wish the learning curve could be made easy to learn, hard to master. Maybe that could be possible by playing some smaller kingdoms, duchies, or nation-states where one learn at a slower pace. Your video is highly encouraging. It breaks down several mechanics into bite-sized pieces.
Thank you so much, Zein :) I agree with you - it IS hard to learn, and it took me many hours of playing and watching UA-cam videos back in 2013 before I knew how to properly play, and that’s not even mentioning any of the newly added features! I will say though that if you take the leap and invest the time, there’s a game here that I feel is so much more giving and enjoyable than any other paradox game or indeed any other strategy game. But I do understand that the climb is incredibly steep, and wouldn’t put it past anyone to skip it - just like I’m having an incredibly hard time to learn the ins and outs of HOI4s battle and unit/division systems and other mechanics.
@@AndysTake , you're right. I am coming to terms with playing it. Perhaps another aspect worth considering as the barrier to entry is the player's preference for nations. I have always played through out Paradox games Germany, Prussia, Aachen, Köln, Bremen, Oldenburg, Finland, Turku. My reasons are the familiarity with the history and culture of those places. Increasingly I'm opening up to play Poland, Croatia, Rome (revive SPQR), Iraq, Cornwall. But not all of those nations, kingdoms or states have an easy difficulty level throughout the titles. On the other hand I can't relate much to easier nations to play. Some games that comes to mind that do this really well: Age of Wonders III, Age of Wonders Planet fall, Rome 2 DEI Rise of the Republic, and King Arthur Role Playing Wargame. Curious which countries do you play in HoI4? Maybe I spent so many hours playing HoI, playing since 2007 that I have become familiar to the series, and blind to the learning curve the series may have for new players. HoI3 was pretty tough in comparison. You should try the Black Ice mod. Off-topic to this video. Worth checking out. Maybe it gives you ideas for HoI4 twitter.com/hoi_game/status/1355199429016514562
Hoi4 is considerably harder to learn than EU4. Apart from trade and estates (which are pretty easy despite looking so intimidating), the rest just comes down to playing.
ive played CK2 , Hoi, victoria and the only things i liked about Europa universali is the sabaton music i really dont get that game help me understand why its good
@@theboxer3158 It's the country focus and era for me. You have a technological era that has a nice development from melee focus to canno. You shape the world. You can colonize peacefully as Portugal playing the trade and power play with vassals and subjects. Similar to Spain. You can marry your way to victory through the totality of Austria. You can become a revolutionary empire like France. You can dominate the seas as England shaping their path towards Great Britain in the way you wish. Will you stop the blob of the Ottomans, or will you risk expansion to the north and north east knowing they are lurking? And some times the most random things happen. Where popular Duchies disappear, absorbed by others. Will the Polish Commonwealth exist, or will Russia expand put west. Can you form the HRE as a nation and not just a collection of vassals, or will you destroy it, bringing the newly formed Protestant Reformation to the top. Man that's like 10% of it lol
I’ve been wanting to get into strategy games and I’ve heard a lot about EU4. I think I’ll take advantage of the huge sale on steam that’s going on right now and buy this game.
Lol I completely forgot about this comment. I actually ended up buying victoria 2 after this instead cause the sale ended. I loved vic2 and played it for a while. Just a few days ago I decided to get back into strategy games and bought eu4, so its really strange timing that someone suddenly responded to this lol.
@@messo_9732 It's meant to be! Never a bad time to give it a try. It will be tricky and I recommend you watch guides or jump into Twitch streams to learn. Now which nation will you play as to conquer the world?
Andy you gotta check out the Anbennar mod, it and Imperium Universalis reignited my interest in EU4. Anbennar is a fantasy mod with its own pretty cool lore. Unlike most fantasy settings, the technology level is around base EU4. Includes population mechanics based off of fantasy races, it has a magic system, and native tribe mechanics are used for adventurer factions who can found kingdoms in the former territory of a collapsed human empire.
just started playing it 2 weeks ago highly recommended but the learning curve is a bit difficult i recommend playing on very easy mode and play as a country that you are familiar with
@@efaq370 yeah i like it I've played as quite a few countries now, the learning curve is difficult though (lots of things to manage) use youtube vids to help you understand
I’ve always been interested in this. I’ve played a TON of Victoria 2 and Crusader Kings 2, but have barely touched the EU series even if my first Paradox game was EU2.
As an avid ck2 player, i have always been fascinated by eu4 and spent almost 300 hours in it. However, whenever i got back to it it just kicked me out of patience. Because this game can be brutal, especially if you want to play with diplomatic and/or administrative focus. Careful planning for decades can turn to a blob coming to you and eating everything you built in a single war. In my experience you have to rush on military points, being always ahead in technology and frenetically looking for strong allies or your will be vanquished. Similarly while in ck2 losing wars can be stimulating and leading to entertaining consequences and playing small is fun, in Eu4 the consequences of loss or being small are devastating. And since you don't play a person, but a state, it can get boring staring at the money and monarch points to slooooowly rise and hope nobody eats you in the while.
The game is a beast. It's had almost a decade of development and is as close as you can get to a perfect grand strategy game. I'd certainly wait for a sale though. Stream still wants £300 for the full bundle which is ridiculous and not worth it imo
IMO, 300 GBP is a lot yes, but still worth it. AAA games are easily 60 GBP now, so you get 5 AAA games worth of money for the bundle, and there is A LOT more than 5x AAA game content available. I always get mad at people complaining about the price, which are often the same people that spent 60 bucks on a new AAA title with 20-30 hours of content and call it great. But then complain about spending 5x as much money on a game they can get 10-50x the amount of content out of.
It was 2015, I was sick and tired of all the mediocre, simple, vanilla experiences the usual rts and strategy games were giving me, I needed something different, something better, something really complex and interesting, so browsing around a couple of words were constantly present in many forum "Paradox Interactive" and "Grand Strategy", it goes without saying I had never heard them before, so I decided to give it a try, CK2 first, EU4 after, it was an enlightening experience, the most intense, surprising and entertaining journey I had ever taken in my gaming life. I sit today on 2300 hours on EU4, 800 on HOI4 and 600 on CK2. Just to give some context, to get the difference, 150 hours and 80 hours are the other most played strategic/rts non paradox games I have in my library, the two combined are barely above a third of the least played grand strategy. To be fair it's not all perfect and good, the dlc policy it's a bit broken and paradox had some bad releases and questionable choices in the recent past, but I played 28 times more to EU4 than I played Rome 2, which is a game I like, so I can't really complain if the game with all the dlc host is around $360, in the end 360/28 is $12
Yeah well, what pisses me off, is that for a newcomer, if they buy the game, it's like they bought 10% of the game, now they have to pay the rest through DLC's, 100's of DLC's..
Only strategy gamers can really feel this huge time span while playing their games, because lets be honest, strategy games are the ones who suck the most time out of any games. That "One more turn" feel is too real
Have you actually played any games? That statement makes no sense. I have 500 hours in this game over years and it's great, but I've spent ridiculous amounts of time in MMORPGs, FPS and MOBA's, more so than a strategy game.
the Vanilla gameis gooe, but playing EU4 with the ET (Extended timeline) 2-9999 is the best mod if you wanna have more times to play in. Also Anbennar and Lord of Universalis are great mod where I spend a lot of time
Nice! I remember playing the extended timeline a looong time ago, but there’s so many more institutions to think about haha, kinda gets outa hand at some point. Or, where does the tech stop? Haven’t tried either Anbennar or Lord of Universalis!
@@AndysTake Lord of Universalis is a new mod based (like the name says) on LOTR and Anbennar is a fun mod to play, I play(/make content) it now, and I enjoy it a lot. I surely remomment both of them. Lord of Universalis is not done yet and some things doesn't work yet since it has 1 mian dev and like 2-3 poeple help the develpment.
Great video, I need to get to EUIV now that I own the dlcs after a long time. I'd love to see a mod video showing the mods because there are SO many. There's an ELDER SCROLLS mod for this game. A LOTR mod as well I think. Would love to see an overview of this
@@AndysTake I need to learn the tutorials....but now that I have the dlcs, does this mean the tutorials are outdated at this point? Because it has been my dream goal to have a crack at this game for sure - tried but always failed!
You forgot the main downside to Europa Universalis IV (other than the lack of love for Norway): the price. It really needs several DLCs before it becomes something truly special.
Seeing your channel is very inspiring to me. Your channel is very good. I just started my own channel recently, focusing on ck3 :) my favourite game :)
Hey Andy, I'm considering whether to buy HOI4 or CK3 but cannot decide. Which game in your opinion is a better buy? Especially for replayability and fun?
Hey, yuhyuh! Good question! As of right now, HOI4 is definitely the most fleshed out of the two, but it’s also just so much more complicated and can be boring (a lot of waiting). CK3 has a great foundation with a bit less content, but has a lot to offer, is a great foundation for the future, and has some truly amazing mods. I’d consider CK3 first honestly :)
My favorite game of all time was empire total war… 750 hours (mostly in high school). This is making me eager to relive those glory days…? Is it worth it in 2024?
I watched the video to decide if I would buy this game but the answer is no. I don't have that much free time to spend on a game that takes so long to learn and master. Which is a shame because I really liked the concept of this game
this game is made very bad about the ottoman empire. A system like the hre should have been built for the Ottoman Empire. For example, The situation of the provinces in the Ottoman Empire was differen from other empires, some states only paid taxes and did not participate in wars(like egypt) while others both paid taxes and participated in wars(like Balkans and anatolian states). Also, there are no events in game like tax collectors taking power in the provinces later on and decentralization got higher and higher after the 1700s until 19th century. Of course, there should also be a pasha system. In the Ottoman Empire, each pasha had his own palace and men, and he had his own strategy. Even later, these pashas formed their own armies and gave them to the sultan when necessary. In addition, while the sultan had absolute authority in the beginning, but after the 1600s, the sultan would choose the grand vizier, and all power would belong to the grand vizier and other factions(Ulema Janissary and Harem). Kind of like a constitutional monarchy. The people were not allowed to join the army, there was only a centralized army and a semi-feudal army. Sometimes they would have fights and palace coups.
@@AndysTake yes it is much clunkeyer and you have to enter in your results, but it is very fun. crusaderbalde is much faster and is slick enough to be part of crusader kings 3
I'll respect the opinion of the ppl that like this game, but for me the Ui is unintiutive and ugly and the map is so low-quality that it looks smeared. Not saying that it's a bad game, I have like 90 mins in the game total so I can't judge it. I'm saying that it's been impossible for me to get into it, especially after getting hooked on CK3 which has it's own downsides but is a lot more noob frriendly, since you can just focus on the role-playing aspects before you start using the strategic and exonomic side of the game. I'll be having fun with CK3, at the end we are all just starring at a map. :D
Even more info that noone asked for: Civ V > Civ VI imo, since an upgrade in graphical fidelity means nothing if you abandon the original art style and make fun of the subjects of the game by portraying them like some Illumination studios villain. I'm sure the gameplay is fine, but I'll take the gorgeous art, soothing narration, stunning map and and realisticly prroportioned character models of the 5th game any day of the week.
Ugh the game of love. For me that's soo annoying. I don't really like to handle that. I just want to war... the conquest the total annihilation of another civ. Some of the total war games have that love thing, and it just gets in to way I feel.
The complexity of this game makes it a very hard to play as a novice.. Too much to learn.. It's easier if you have played the game from it's more simple origins because you have learned along the way.. But to start playing this game from nooby status is just too daunting..
@@AndysTake And you dont make any effort to let the viewers know that? Its common rule to have links in the description, so the fact idk that its kinda a big problem, hopefully will be fixed.
As a Chinese, I'm super disappointed at how shallow the mechanics are for Ming. Paradox essentially just reskinned Europe as Ming with the add-on of the very basic Mandate of Heaven system, but nothing else changed. For one, China historically had no estates. The merchants and clerics had zero actual power, Ming was extremely centralized even for a feudal absolute monarchy beyond all European standards, and all lands were crown lands of the Emperor. And it was 100% socially accepted for the Emperor to have multiple wives, concubines and heirs. It was so silly to see random events such as the Emperor having extra marital affairs scandal, the heir dying causing a succession crisis, or the "estates" asking for more lands from the Emperor, which would had been absolute high treason. All of these are random events for European kingdoms copied and pasted straight onto the Ming, which makes no sense in the context of Ming. Ming is also given zero national decisions, it goes to show just how little Paradox actually researched about Ming and the little effort they put into the game for Ming. This really distorts history and give people the incorrect perception of what pre-modern China was like.
They did same thing to the Ottoman empire, my comment on the video; "this game is made very shallow about the ottoman empire. A system like the hre should have been built for the Ottoman Empire. For example, The situation of the provinces in the Ottoman Empire was differen from other empires, some states only paid taxes and did not participate in wars(like egypt) while others both paid taxes and participated in wars(like Balkans and anatolian states). Also, there are no events in game like tax collectors taking power in the provinces later on and decentralization got higher and higher after the 1700s until 19th century. Of course, there should also be a pasha system. In the Ottoman Empire, each pasha had his own palace and men, and he had his own strategy. Even later, these pashas formed their own armies and gave them to the sultan when necessary. In addition, while the sultan had absolute authority in the beginning, but after the 1600s, the sultan would choose the grand vizier, and all power would belong to the grand vizier and other factions(Ulema Janissary and Harem traders and non muslims had no influence on the government). Kind of like a constitutional monarchy. The people were not allowed to join the army, there was only a centralized army and a semi-feudal army. Sometimes they would have fights and palace coups."
As an old player of this series it is really hard for a non European (non-western tech) to achieve world dominance... European Eastern Tech they have a chance but most of non Europe powers have really hard time...
the main thing is, there shouldn't be world dominance at all, IRL "world dominance" didn't really happen until the Victorian era the game should make it a lot harder to even have a global empire in the first place
@@bombyouup62 Take advantage of DLC sales and bundle sales. You have a chance now during winter sales. You also don't need all the DLCs, there's only a few "important" ones, like Art of War. There's lists out there showing what are the best DLC.
I've tried this but honestly its the worsed strategy game that i have ever played in my life, and ive played to many... feels like no one on the team had any idea of concept for the game so they just started adding in every luckfactor, multiplier, and modifier they could think of with around 3.2 seconds of thought given to each of them. A few parts of the game turned out fine'ish but overall I own no other game so worthy of the name garbage...
I'm one of those who needs a small team of 10 people or so at Paradox to develop a simple version of their titles .-. Some say "then it wouldn't be EU or CK, then it wouldn't be Paradox" and all I can say is that I don't give a damn, because I don't see anyone making that, being Age of Civilization 2 the closest alternative (and far away from being a Paradox title). Last night I tried Dwarf Fortress and found out it was simple af, I mean sure you can ruin your entire game due to random stuff happening, but my god, you literally start playing, without tutorial, and you eventually get to understand most of the stuff in just a day. This was not the case for me with any Paradox game, and that's sad D: and a bit weird, since Dwarf Fortress was supposed to be "extremely difficult to play due to all the parameters you can play with", parameters my balls 🤌
Why dont total war and paradox come together and make a game. Literally would pay hundreds for a game like that.
Haha same!
You can kind of do that yourself. Boot up total war to simulate important battles in your campaign and then use console commands to make the result of the total war battle happen in EU4
@@paradoxexpress6976 It isn’t the same. It’s hard to expand to exactly the same extent, and have the same battles. I would easily pay 60 dollars (plus 300 worth of expansion over 10 years) for a Total War/EU combination.
ISP Actually got sponsored by a game that does that
No PC could handle such power
For anyone who has second thoughts about all the systems in the game, try Crusader Kings 3 first. It is really new player friendly, but still has the same amount of moddability and replayability, and will get your feet wet before you start EUIV
I second this. i am actually comming from ck3 myself, have played both stellaris and hoi4 but ck3 is the game that has taught me the paradox formula. been wanting to try both victoria 2 and eu4 but as victoria3 is only a month away i decided to go for this.
@@Fightsome64 I tried EU4 first and was overwhelmed, then when CK3 came out, the formula really clicked and I got it. Now all the other titles are much easier to grasp. Waiting for Vicky 3, have it preordered and ready to go.
The game is on sale on steam right now. should i invest in eu4 and its whole dlc? is this worth it or should i wait for the next eu5 version.
Bro what. I’ve heard CK3 is easier? I tried playing it and understood nothing lol
@@Ghall2708 Hey yeah its definitely still a Paradox title that requires some help via YT vids etc. but the basics are not hard. You need money to do everything, but your land can only do so much so you need to go get more. Attack neighbors that aren't closely allied with other neighbors or marry off your kids and wait for inheritance. Press claims etc.
As much as I love EU4, it has been challenging for me to even start the game. This is coming from someone who has been playing CK2, EUIII (with mods D&T, MEIOU etc), Vicky1, Vicky2, HoI2, HoI3, HoI4.
The steel hill to climb that I see is the sheer abundance of parameters I feel I need to understand before I can gain any control over them that will make me capable of making any impact. There is also a guilty pleasure of having such complex interfaces and controls available, which adds significant depth, unlike any other game. Overhaul mods make the game all the more compelling with additional mechanics, further increasing complexity and depth.
I just wish the learning curve could be made easy to learn, hard to master. Maybe that could be possible by playing some smaller kingdoms, duchies, or nation-states where one learn at a slower pace.
Your video is highly encouraging. It breaks down several mechanics into bite-sized pieces.
Thank you so much, Zein :) I agree with you - it IS hard to learn, and it took me many hours of playing and watching UA-cam videos back in 2013 before I knew how to properly play, and that’s not even mentioning any of the newly added features! I will say though that if you take the leap and invest the time, there’s a game here that I feel is so much more giving and enjoyable than any other paradox game or indeed any other strategy game. But I do understand that the climb is incredibly steep, and wouldn’t put it past anyone to skip it - just like I’m having an incredibly hard time to learn the ins and outs of HOI4s battle and unit/division systems and other mechanics.
@@AndysTake , you're right. I am coming to terms with playing it. Perhaps another aspect worth considering as the barrier to entry is the player's preference for nations. I have always played through out Paradox games Germany, Prussia, Aachen, Köln, Bremen, Oldenburg, Finland, Turku. My reasons are the familiarity with the history and culture of those places. Increasingly I'm opening up to play Poland, Croatia, Rome (revive SPQR), Iraq, Cornwall. But not all of those nations, kingdoms or states have an easy difficulty level throughout the titles. On the other hand I can't relate much to easier nations to play.
Some games that comes to mind that do this really well: Age of Wonders III, Age of Wonders Planet fall, Rome 2 DEI Rise of the Republic, and King Arthur Role Playing Wargame.
Curious which countries do you play in HoI4? Maybe I spent so many hours playing HoI, playing since 2007 that I have become familiar to the series, and blind to the learning curve the series may have for new players. HoI3 was pretty tough in comparison. You should try the Black Ice mod.
Off-topic to this video. Worth checking out. Maybe it gives you ideas for HoI4
twitter.com/hoi_game/status/1355199429016514562
Feels easier to start learning Japanese then this game...
Hoi4 is considerably harder to learn than EU4. Apart from trade and estates (which are pretty easy despite looking so intimidating), the rest just comes down to playing.
I've played this game for 700 hours and I'm still watching this. What a game.
Hear hear :)
ive played CK2 , Hoi, victoria and the only things i liked about Europa universali is the sabaton music i really dont get that game help me understand why its good
@@theboxer3158 It's the country focus and era for me. You have a technological era that has a nice development from melee focus to canno. You shape the world. You can colonize peacefully as Portugal playing the trade and power play with vassals and subjects. Similar to Spain. You can marry your way to victory through the totality of Austria. You can become a revolutionary empire like France. You can dominate the seas as England shaping their path towards Great Britain in the way you wish. Will you stop the blob of the Ottomans, or will you risk expansion to the north and north east knowing they are lurking? And some times the most random things happen. Where popular Duchies disappear, absorbed by others. Will the Polish Commonwealth exist, or will Russia expand put west. Can you form the HRE as a nation and not just a collection of vassals, or will you destroy it, bringing the newly formed Protestant Reformation to the top.
Man that's like 10% of it lol
@@chocolaterain5097 thats a whole lot of nothing
@@theboxer3158 Okay brother God bless you on your journey.
I’ve been wanting to get into strategy games and I’ve heard a lot about EU4. I think I’ll take advantage of the huge sale on steam that’s going on right now and buy this game.
That’s awesome, Messo! Thanks for watching, I’m sure you’ll love it! :D
So what are your opinion now?
Definitely worth playing, but I may be biased
Lol I completely forgot about this comment. I actually ended up buying victoria 2 after this instead cause the sale ended. I loved vic2 and played it for a while. Just a few days ago I decided to get back into strategy games and bought eu4, so its really strange timing that someone suddenly responded to this lol.
@@messo_9732 It's meant to be! Never a bad time to give it a try. It will be tricky and I recommend you watch guides or jump into Twitch streams to learn. Now which nation will you play as to conquer the world?
eu4 is my favorite game of all time. no other game makes me feel the way eu4 does. it's so good
Andy you gotta check out the Anbennar mod, it and Imperium Universalis reignited my interest in EU4. Anbennar is a fantasy mod with its own pretty cool lore. Unlike most fantasy settings, the technology level is around base EU4. Includes population mechanics based off of fantasy races, it has a magic system, and native tribe mechanics are used for adventurer factions who can found kingdoms in the former territory of a collapsed human empire.
just started playing it 2 weeks ago
highly recommended but the learning curve is a bit difficult
i recommend playing on very easy mode and play as a country that you are familiar with
How is it 6 months later? Im thinking of buying it soon too. Im just curious if you think it was worth it
@@efaq370 yeah i like it
I've played as quite a few countries now, the learning curve is difficult though (lots of things to manage)
use youtube vids to help you understand
@@yux.tn.3641 okay thank you
@@efaq370 play as countries that you are familiar with 👍
@@yux.tn.3641 Yea i will but it when its on sale and probably start of as the Ottomans since i know alot about them
Over 1400 hours here and have not played the game in years. You make me come back to my old friend
Happy to hear it, Konstantin ❤️
Excellent Video!!! I just bought the remaining DLCs I was missing. =)
Thank you so much!! :D awesome, which pieces were you missing? :)
This is such a good video, exactly what I was looking for, keep on lad!
Thank you so much, Heza! Glad to hear it :D
I’ve always been interested in this. I’ve played a TON of Victoria 2 and Crusader Kings 2, but have barely touched the EU series even if my first Paradox game was EU2.
I highly recommend it! It’s absolutely fantastic, will just take some time to learn ;)
it has been 578 years since Europa Universalis 0 came out, truly a unique experience
As an avid ck2 player, i have always been fascinated by eu4 and spent almost 300 hours in it. However, whenever i got back to it it just kicked me out of patience. Because this game can be brutal, especially if you want to play with diplomatic and/or administrative focus. Careful planning for decades can turn to a blob coming to you and eating everything you built in a single war. In my experience you have to rush on military points, being always ahead in technology and frenetically looking for strong allies or your will be vanquished. Similarly while in ck2 losing wars can be stimulating and leading to entertaining consequences and playing small is fun, in Eu4 the consequences of loss or being small are devastating. And since you don't play a person, but a state, it can get boring staring at the money and monarch points to slooooowly rise and hope nobody eats you in the while.
So you're saying it plays a lot like reality then?
The game is a beast. It's had almost a decade of development and is as close as you can get to a perfect grand strategy game. I'd certainly wait for a sale though. Stream still wants £300 for the full bundle which is ridiculous and not worth it imo
You should subscibe for 5 dollar per month
They do have a DLC subscription now though I believe ;)
IMO, 300 GBP is a lot yes, but still worth it.
AAA games are easily 60 GBP now, so you get 5 AAA games worth of money for the bundle, and there is A LOT more than 5x AAA game content available.
I always get mad at people complaining about the price, which are often the same people that spent 60 bucks on a new AAA title with 20-30 hours of content and call it great.
But then complain about spending 5x as much money on a game they can get 10-50x the amount of content out of.
It was 2015, I was sick and tired of all the mediocre, simple, vanilla experiences the usual rts and strategy games were giving me, I needed something different, something better, something really complex and interesting, so browsing around a couple of words were constantly present in many forum "Paradox Interactive" and "Grand Strategy", it goes without saying I had never heard them before, so I decided to give it a try, CK2 first, EU4 after, it was an enlightening experience, the most intense, surprising and entertaining journey I had ever taken in my gaming life.
I sit today on 2300 hours on EU4, 800 on HOI4 and 600 on CK2.
Just to give some context, to get the difference, 150 hours and 80 hours are the other most played strategic/rts non paradox games I have in my library, the two combined are barely above a third of the least played grand strategy. To be fair it's not all perfect and good, the dlc policy it's a bit broken and paradox had some bad releases and questionable choices in the recent past, but I played 28 times more to EU4 than I played Rome 2, which is a game I like, so I can't really complain if the game with all the dlc host is around $360, in the end 360/28 is $12
Exactly, my dude, exactly. Well said!
Yeah well, what pisses me off, is that for a newcomer, if they buy the game, it's like they bought 10% of the game, now they have to pay the rest through DLC's, 100's of DLC's..
Only strategy gamers can really feel this huge time span while playing their games, because lets be honest, strategy games are the ones who suck the most time out of any games. That "One more turn" feel is too real
Have you actually played any games? That statement makes no sense. I have 500 hours in this game over years and it's great, but I've spent ridiculous amounts of time in MMORPGs, FPS and MOBA's, more so than a strategy game.
the Vanilla gameis gooe, but playing EU4 with the ET (Extended timeline) 2-9999 is the best mod if you wanna have more times to play in. Also Anbennar and Lord of Universalis are great mod where I spend a lot of time
Nice! I remember playing the extended timeline a looong time ago, but there’s so many more institutions to think about haha, kinda gets outa hand at some point. Or, where does the tech stop? Haven’t tried either Anbennar or Lord of Universalis!
@@AndysTake Lord of Universalis is a new mod based (like the name says) on LOTR and Anbennar is a fun mod to play, I play(/make content) it now, and I enjoy it a lot. I surely remomment both of them. Lord of Universalis is not done yet and some things doesn't work yet since it has 1 mian dev and like 2-3 poeple help the develpment.
@@thisisgamelord2421 Sounds awesome! How does it compare to the LOTR mod in CK3?
@@AndysTake I don't know, I don't have CK3
@@thisisgamelord2421 Haha fair enough!
This was great, defo do one for Hoiv, it's getting used to DLC changes etc which is so hard to come back after a few years
Thank you! :) damn HOI will be difficult hahaha
Great video, I need to get to EUIV now that I own the dlcs after a long time. I'd love to see a mod video showing the mods because there are SO many. There's an ELDER SCROLLS mod for this game. A LOTR mod as well I think. Would love to see an overview of this
Thanks, Medjay, it’s a truly great game you need to play! The modding scene is also phenomenal!
@@AndysTake I need to learn the tutorials....but now that I have the dlcs, does this mean the tutorials are outdated at this point?
Because it has been my dream goal to have a crack at this game for sure - tried but always failed!
I have almost 4000 hours in EU4... still love it :)
The party doesn't stop in 2023! With domination and king of kings blowing everything out of the park
Thank you Epic.
You forgot the main downside to Europa Universalis IV (other than the lack of love for Norway): the price. It really needs several DLCs before it becomes something truly special.
Is it worth in 2021?
Me with every cell of my body:YESSSS
YEEESSSS!!! :D
@@AndysTake Plus MEIOU mod - YEEEEESSSSSS!
@@josthobic9860 YEEEEEEEEESSSSS
Seeing your channel is very inspiring to me. Your channel is very good. I just started my own channel recently, focusing on ck3 :) my favourite game :)
Thank you so much! And good luck to you :)
I'm actually surprised it has only been 8 years
Hahaha ONLY 8 years?!
Hey Andy, I'm considering whether to buy HOI4 or CK3 but cannot decide. Which game in your opinion is a better buy? Especially for replayability and fun?
Hey, yuhyuh! Good question! As of right now, HOI4 is definitely the most fleshed out of the two, but it’s also just so much more complicated and can be boring (a lot of waiting). CK3 has a great foundation with a bit less content, but has a lot to offer, is a great foundation for the future, and has some truly amazing mods. I’d consider CK3 first honestly :)
@@AndysTake sounds good, ck3 it is! Thanks Andy!
@@yuhyuh5674 My pleasure, let me know what you think of it once you’ve had a chance to play it! :D
My favorite game of all time was empire total war… 750 hours (mostly in high school). This is making me eager to relive those glory days…? Is it worth it in 2024?
I always want to play this but i never have played this kind of games before.
Just gotta start, you know? I say jump into it! :)
"HOI4 is so much better obviously"
"Oh yeah? Give me one reason why."
"Uh...." *disintegrates*
is this another version of the game Crusader Kings?
The game realy makes you feel like Putin. Just a 30 sec to a minute of history
I am so hooked on HOI4 that I have over 6000 hours in it last time I looked.
Did they finally make the UI work well with 1440p? Last I checked you either had to mod it or deal with blurry text and unnatural boxes.
Worked well on my 1440p screen!
You even left out the two best mechanics of EU4, the trade and diplomacy systems!
I'm sorry! There's just so much lol, but I think I got my point across. I love this game.
You mean Europa DLCrsalis IV
And then you install new MEIOU mod (i played it already in EU3) and you cant play vanilla ever again :)
Which Paradox games are relatively easier to learn ?
Personally I’d say CK3 and Stellaris are the easiest, followed by EU, then Imperator: Rome, then CK2, and then HOI 4 is the hardest.
@@AndysTake Ok
BTW which Paradox Game do you think is most similar to Total War.. I think its EU IV .. Do you agree ?
I watched the video to decide if I would buy this game but the answer is no. I don't have that much free time to spend on a game that takes so long to learn and master. Which is a shame because I really liked the concept of this game
Just started playing this game. Don't want to do the subscription. What are must have DLCs?
All of them
Why anyone would compare these two franchises is beyond me.
Im CK player, and EU4 and Victoria looks too complicated :)
10 years now or almost
this game is made very bad about the ottoman empire. A system like the hre should have been built for the Ottoman Empire. For example, The situation of the provinces in the Ottoman Empire was differen from other empires, some states only paid taxes and did not participate in wars(like egypt) while others both paid taxes and participated in wars(like Balkans and anatolian states). Also, there are no events in game like tax collectors taking power in the provinces later on and decentralization got higher and higher after the 1700s until 19th century. Of course, there should also be a pasha system. In the Ottoman Empire, each pasha had his own palace and men, and he had his own strategy. Even later, these pashas formed their own armies and gave them to the sultan when necessary. In addition, while the sultan had absolute authority in the beginning, but after the 1600s, the sultan would choose the grand vizier, and all power would belong to the grand vizier and other factions(Ulema Janissary and Harem). Kind of like a constitutional monarchy. The people were not allowed to join the army, there was only a centralized army and a semi-feudal army. Sometimes they would have fights and palace coups.
Are there any good mods that expand Ottoman Empire mechanics?
@@MedjayofFaiyum Propably no
I wish one day Paradox would also add battles like in total war :-) That would be awsome !
How do you rank the Age of Empires games ?(Both OG and Remasters)
I like AoE 1-3, but felt like 4 was underwhelming.. I made a review if you wanna know more :)
Which border mod is this???
Hey man love the vids but I’ve been curious what are your pc specs
Thank you, Omar! I’m currently playing on a gaming laptop, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, and AMD Ryzen 5800x or something haha
theres a mod to fight battles in medieval or napoleon total war
You’re sure that’s not the one for CK3?
@@AndysTake yes it is much clunkeyer and you have to enter in your results, but it is very fun. crusaderbalde is much faster and is slick enough to be part of crusader kings 3
Weird, only Napoleon and medieval but no Empire?
I'll respect the opinion of the ppl that like this game, but for me the Ui is unintiutive and ugly and the map is so low-quality that it looks smeared.
Not saying that it's a bad game, I have like 90 mins in the game total so I can't judge it.
I'm saying that it's been impossible for me to get into it, especially after getting hooked on CK3 which has it's own downsides but is a lot more noob frriendly, since you can just focus on the role-playing aspects before you start using the strategic and exonomic side of the game.
I'll be having fun with CK3, at the end we are all just starring at a map. :D
Even more info that noone asked for:
Civ V > Civ VI imo, since an upgrade in graphical fidelity means nothing if you abandon the original art style and make fun of the subjects of the game by portraying them like some Illumination studios villain.
I'm sure the gameplay is fine, but I'll take the gorgeous art, soothing narration, stunning map and and realisticly prroportioned character models of the 5th game any day of the week.
Ugh the game of love. For me that's soo annoying. I don't really like to handle that. I just want to war... the conquest the total annihilation of another civ. Some of the total war games have that love thing, and it just gets in to way I feel.
almost a decade now
The complexity of this game makes it a very hard to play as a novice.. Too much to learn.. It's easier if you have played the game from it's more simple origins because you have learned along the way.. But to start playing this game from nooby status is just too daunting..
Nah, that is the good thing...I get bored if game has nothing to explore in means of detail and strange and new game mechanics.
worth it in 2021? yes
I agree :)
A honest review? Its not even my fucking birthday.
Andy: 22:37
Also Andy: *doesnt link the video*
ua-cam.com/video/0pef9ofUPCQ/v-deo.html
I linked it as a banner in the video, but thank you ;)
@@AndysTake And you dont make any effort to let the viewers know that? Its common rule to have links in the description, so the fact idk that its kinda a big problem, hopefully will be fixed.
As a Chinese, I'm super disappointed at how shallow the mechanics are for Ming. Paradox essentially just reskinned Europe as Ming with the add-on of the very basic Mandate of Heaven system, but nothing else changed. For one, China historically had no estates. The merchants and clerics had zero actual power, Ming was extremely centralized even for a feudal absolute monarchy beyond all European standards, and all lands were crown lands of the Emperor. And it was 100% socially accepted for the Emperor to have multiple wives, concubines and heirs. It was so silly to see random events such as the Emperor having extra marital affairs scandal, the heir dying causing a succession crisis, or the "estates" asking for more lands from the Emperor, which would had been absolute high treason. All of these are random events for European kingdoms copied and pasted straight onto the Ming, which makes no sense in the context of Ming.
Ming is also given zero national decisions, it goes to show just how little Paradox actually researched about Ming and the little effort they put into the game for Ming. This really distorts history and give people the incorrect perception of what pre-modern China was like.
They did same thing to the Ottoman empire,
my comment on the video;
"this game is made very shallow about the ottoman empire. A system like the hre should have been built for the Ottoman Empire. For example, The situation of the provinces in the Ottoman Empire was differen from other empires, some states only paid taxes and did not participate in wars(like egypt) while others both paid taxes and participated in wars(like Balkans and anatolian states). Also, there are no events in game like tax collectors taking power in the provinces later on and decentralization got higher and higher after the 1700s until 19th century. Of course, there should also be a pasha system. In the Ottoman Empire, each pasha had his own palace and men, and he had his own strategy. Even later, these pashas formed their own armies and gave them to the sultan when necessary. In addition, while the sultan had absolute authority in the beginning, but after the 1600s, the sultan would choose the grand vizier, and all power would belong to the grand vizier and other factions(Ulema Janissary and Harem traders and non muslims had no influence on the government). Kind of like a constitutional monarchy. The people were not allowed to join the army, there was only a centralized army and a semi-feudal army. Sometimes they would have fights and palace coups."
@@SeFa590 Yes they should have really made each nation more unique.
Try MEIOU mod....
Agreed
I have no clue what you're saying... hippity hoopla.
you sound a high school kid who didn't read the material and have a test about it the following day...
Still no WASD support. PASS.
As an old player of this series it is really hard for a non European (non-western tech) to achieve world dominance... European Eastern Tech they have a chance but most of non Europe powers have really hard time...
Nah, in vanilla game I become world leader with one nation in Indonesia...its not easy, but not impossible either.
Its reality for this time period my friend
It was 100% true, but it have changed, to the point it's rather overdone in the opposite direction. I guess you haven't played for a longer time.
the main thing is, there shouldn't be world dominance at all, IRL "world dominance" didn't really happen until the Victorian era
the game should make it a lot harder to even have a global empire in the first place
Every review I've seen is maps and more maps . where's the actual battle views ? I'll stick with Men of War Assault Squad .
Not worth it for the amount of money required and this coming from a Warhammer Total fan.
Would disagree! Why don’t you think it’s worth it?
I'm talking about the price of dlc because without that the game is bland. Yet they overcharged and have too many dlcs. The sims effect.
@@bombyouup62 Take advantage of DLC sales and bundle sales. You have a chance now during winter sales. You also don't need all the DLCs, there's only a few "important" ones, like Art of War. There's lists out there showing what are the best DLC.
@@bombyouup62 do like me have the game free( epic game) and rise the blag flag🏴☠️
Just pirated eu4 1.35.6 for GOG. Came with 68 DLCs lol. I've never played any paradox game and have only had my first gaming pc for a few months.
game graphics is outdated
Install a mod for graphic rehaul.
It's a map game. Graphics are fine as they are.
This game so flawed. damnit what a waste
I've tried this but honestly its the worsed strategy game that i have ever played in my life, and ive played to many...
feels like no one on the team had any idea of concept for the game so they just started adding in every luckfactor, multiplier, and modifier they could think of with around 3.2 seconds of thought given to each of them. A few parts of the game turned out fine'ish but overall I own no other game so worthy of the name garbage...
What a waste of time
I'm one of those who needs a small team of 10 people or so at Paradox to develop a simple version of their titles .-. Some say "then it wouldn't be EU or CK, then it wouldn't be Paradox" and all I can say is that I don't give a damn, because I don't see anyone making that, being Age of Civilization 2 the closest alternative (and far away from being a Paradox title).
Last night I tried Dwarf Fortress and found out it was simple af, I mean sure you can ruin your entire game due to random stuff happening, but my god, you literally start playing, without tutorial, and you eventually get to understand most of the stuff in just a day. This was not the case for me with any Paradox game, and that's sad D: and a bit weird, since Dwarf Fortress was supposed to be "extremely difficult to play due to all the parameters you can play with", parameters my balls 🤌