What makes this so fun to play is that everything is presented to you in-game and, as mentioned previously, you can easily see what decisions are affecting a nation’s opinion of you. While getting on the wrong side of other nations could have disastrous results. In EUIV being on good terms with another nation will actually benefit you, particularly if they have a sizable military. There’s diplomacy itself to think about how other nations view your own and vice versa has a huge impact on the landscape of your world. The big game-changing decisions don’t stop with Monarch Power either, not by a long shot. These kind of decisions are what make the game so endlessly engaging. Or perhaps you need some diplomacy points to gain a new ‘idea’ (more on this later), but you also need them to settle an aggressive peace arrangement with your enemy. You may want your administrative points to upgrade your technology so you can build a shiny new manufactory, but your stability is also low and you need those same points to give it a boost, or else face widespread riots. A lot of your decisions will be based around how to spend each of these. The three Monarch Power categories (diplomacy, administration and military), of which you gain points for depending on your leader’s ability, form the backbone of the game. What really strikes me about EUIV is the near perfect sense of balance that’s found within the game mechanics. It’s safe to say though that the new systems introduced, as well as the refinements to the current mechanics, are fantastic. Which was written after playing the beta for about 30 hours, so is still very well informed. If you want a full descriptive rundown of the new mechanics found in-game, then you’re best off reading my preview first. No degree of explanation, however, can really prepare players for what EUIV has to offer, it has to be played to be truly understood, and it has to be played a lot to master. Of course, the reason the UI is so useful is because it helps to unravel the complexity of the core gameplay. In many ways, the UI has been developing over the past few Paradox grand strategy titles, but this feels like the big final jump into near-perfection territory and ultimately it means that new players can learn while they play. Or hover over the two available decisions for an event, and you’ll see how each of these decisions will affect your game. Hover over another nation’s opinion of yours, for example, and you’ll see a breakdown of why they like/dislike you. Every single piece of information is clearly explained by an info panel that describes what effects a decision will have or what is causing a certain event. The biggest step Paradox have made, however, is in the UI. A simple, but informative, tutorial can be found upon starting the game and while this doesn’t quite capture how all the mechanics work in unison, it does a good job of teaching new players the basics, as well as introducing newer elements of the game. It makes sense, then, that Paradox have taken a fair few steps to make things a little clearer to new players. Of course, those same people are unlikely to have tried a Paradox grand strategy game before. One might argue that this is a bold claim for a game that takes place entirely on a virtual map of the world. What your imagination can conjure, EUIV will help you fulfil. EUIV allows you to take history into your own hands and make any change that you desire. It’s what the audience can do with, and how they react to, the concepts and principles of those parts combined. Yes, it so happens that it’s also a bloody great game, but like all great media pieces, it’s not just the individual parts of the product that make it great. Reviews // 24th Aug 2013 - 10 years ago // By Ryan Davies Europa Universalis IV ReviewĮuropa Universalis IV is, at the risk of cliché, more than just a game.
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