I’d love to play even a scenario beginning in 3000BC with Sumer but the historical sources are too poor and I understand why this idea is impossible to translate into the game. For sure the option to start even in the early middle ages would have been a nice feature. One aspects above all they could have surely improved is the period of time considered: they slightly shorteded it from EU2 whan they could have extended it. But most of times (nay, everytime) the key for a good match is to read between the lines of history and take the right decisions: pushing too hard on war will result irreparably in a sudden defeat, while being too careful will lead you to the historical meaninglessness.įrom EU2 to EU4 11 years have passed and, while some games dynamics only needed to be refined and updated because they were already perfect, some aspect of the game needed to be improved but at Paradox they forgot to do all of the homeworks. The base script is already written – we’re dealing again with the period that goes from the XIV to the XIX century with all its vault of significant events that affect the gameplay. You can’t say the graphics are the state of the art for the period, even because such level of detail was absolutely not required, but all of the visuals and the animations are exactly what you need from a game like this. Perhaps is my sould of maps and flags lover but seing a well shaped map of the world with thousands of flags and coat of arms always make my heart melt. This is another strong point of the game, although not requred. Luckily at Paradox they fixed this issue and – again despite being something absolutely useless – they game their game a captivating intro with a long loading screen in which the developers put a lot of useful hints to play the game at its best. The intro sequence was rather poor and most of times used to crash (and it was not only a problem with my PC…).

If you remember my original review (and if you don’t go and read it 🙂 ) this was the only weak point – although useless considering the kind of game we’re talking about.

Well, all of my wishes have been fulfilled, and EUIV goes directly in the top-10 strategy games I’ve ever played. I loved the precursor Europa Universalis II and since I found EUIII not so interesting I’ve passed directly to the fourth game, looking for some improved graphics, gameplay and interactivity. I’ve first played this game in 2015 and I’ve intensively started played it in 2016 (and I even purchased my own copy last year) and it has been one of the first projects – of many, unfortunately 😦 – I’ve tackled and abandoned on this blog whjile it as still in its very first weeks of age.

Europa universalis 4 review 2018