Things you need to know when playing EU4: 1. agressive expansion is just a number 2. overextension is just a number 3. corruption is not just a number, keep that shit low
I can't believe its been 10 years, feels like only a few years ago I saw it on the steam store banner that it had just come out. The game has changed so much and its crazy that most players today didn't get to see what it was like early on. RIP square Memel
The replayability is actually insane. You can replay the same nation 5-6 times and still have a different experience every time, changing up your strategy, your ideas, your "build" in a way that only matchmade multiplayer games can really compete with. And it's all singleplayer. And that's for one nation- even only going into the middlegame, plumbing the depths of one country like that can take 200+ hours. And there are hundreds of playable countries. Even if you only pick the ones with unique mechanics, there are still close to 100 fun, worthwhile countries to play. And this is all without mods.
It seems like just yesterday that I stumbled across Arumba's CK2 guide, which led me to playing CK2 and then his EU4 guide which led me to play EU4 lol. 10 years later I'm still playing EU4 and CK3/CK2.
Similar story. I read about EU4 in a magazine. Found it on steam for preorder and you got eu3 and CK2 to play before it released. I have thousands of hours in the EU and CK games now
Similar story. I read about EU4 in a magazine. Found it on steam for preorder and you got eu3 and CK2 to play before it released. I have thousands of hours in the EU and CK games now
@@primepossum6997 Same, I'm not sure what happened to him either. I kinda stopped watching him around 2016/17 and I think that's when their relationship "ended". He use to be a huge contributor to the community too, quite sad.
@@HEEHEEBOIIhe fell out with Paradox a few years ago and stopped RUclips pretty much all together after some personal stuff. But he still streams over on Twitch!
Yes, I love Paradox Games and I hate their DLC Policy, because they change the Vanilla Game that they are balanced for their latest DLC. That sucks! Example: KI and Look of Standard Civ6: balanced and updated Standard Stellaris: KI fucked up, DLC "ads" everywhere. In the future, I will dislike every game of Paradox, because this is sooo annoying
The PDX game model is hated by penny-pinchers. But for long-term game support it is ingenious. 10-20 dollar DLC every 6 months across a decade generates more money than a 100 dollar game every ten.
yeah same I think this kinda model is best for games that are meant to be supported a decade or two, especially in an industry where short term profit incentives are important . I still dislike it a lot but that's more because it feels like they make some DLC feel more like a necessity than a choice. I know for a fact though that EU4 wouldn't be alive if it got the Creative Assembly treatment which is to be abandoned in 2 years with really only 1 or 2 major content updates. I think that treating games that are meant to have infinite replayability like that is just dumb
I’ve spent what must be about $400 dollars on this game, but the amount of time and fun I’ve had from it has been extraordinary, and as you say, it’s usually $20 twice a year or so, which isn’t bad at all, for me anyway.
My gripe is the DLC as of late has not been worth the $20, and also releasing horribly buggy. Stellaris is my favorite of their games and I haven't purchased the last two major ones, and don't get me started on the latest one being $20 but only giving about the same amount of content as Distant Stars.
As a tip for anyone that hasn't tried the mod yet, Anbennar is in my opinion the best total conversion mod of any game I've ever played it renewed my love for the game and it makes for a refreshing difference to the achievement hunting ways I have in vanilla EU4.
Absolutely love it! I play it with a friend a lot and currently have a game we play every few days a bit. So many different mechanics I want in normal EU4. Love that it also has custom unit models, I wish they'd add even more like dwarves and stuff.
I was so sad he didn't mention that mod! Truly the best mod I've ever played for any game. One of the most impactful parts of the mod is that the world is far larger, with way more development, and most nations are far more specialized. This makes it so you can play yourself into a particular style, or run up against a surprisingly difficult enemy in a way that doesn't exist in EU4 base game. Fighting Bhuvauri vs Switzerland is like night and day despite being on paper defensive nations with a focus on mercenaries. Another big benefit of the mod is that it takes waaay longer to be the undisputed #1 Great Power, whereas in the base game it's not terribly hard to be in the top 3 as nearly any nation within 30-50 years of game start. In Anbennar, it's not uncommon to run across nations that have over 2k development and aren't even in the top 4, unlike in base game EU4 where China barely crests 1000 development.
There's also Age of Empires 2 which is still alive. Not in its original form, but the definitive edition. Still, pretty impressive for a game that was launched in 1999 and has kept most of the mechanics since back then. It has recently received a lot of balance updates and a new DLC.
Quality video, those were exactly the reasons, why i love and play this game for 10 years now. I would make one addition though. The close connection between the hardcore fanbase and the developers from PDX. More often than not you see player opinions being largely ignored, unless something gamebreaking happens. Over the course of the years i had the feeling, that the devs always tried to build their concepts around player feedback. Of course this did not always work out perfectly, but the game was significantly improved every single year. If they messed up, they fixed it. That is company you buy a dlc from, even if it seems.. questionable at first. PS: A special thanks should definitely go to all the history nerds, who fought to make this game as historically accurate and detailed as it is today!
It’s the best relationship between a large company and its players. You don’t even have to be part of the hardcore fanbase. Just comment on any recent Dev Diary and your opinion will most likely be read, and there are good odds they’ll even reply to your questions directly.
@@dominator1914 Paradox is a very large studio, so there's a chance that Tinto (the studio developing EU4) is simply running maintenance. Plus, the past 4-5 DLCs haven't added any new mechanics (like how Common Sense added development), so it's clear that they're slowing down anyway.
@@cs0345it's gonna be like ck3, nice for 100h or so but lacking all the DLCs and updates that made the previous game so good. And then it's gonna take years to achieve the same again
A truly special game. Really started my love of Early Modern Era history and easily clears any other game I have at just under 2100 hours. Still learning new things every day.
I have thousands of hours in this game. Every campaign is different from the last, every country has a unique and often challenging starting position. The multiplayer can be super fun if you have a lot of friends that play. It is simply my favorite game of all time.
Tip: Buy the subscription for 5 dollars, cancel it and launch the game directly from the executable in the game files. Paradox Games don't have DRM or checks like that so you'll keep the DLC forever until you press launch in the launcher (Accidentally opening the launcher won't remove your DLC, clicking on launch from there will)
I fully agree with the "take[ing] far longer to reach mastery" aspect. I've got something like 1400 hours on steam and another 3-400 in offline mode (was binging so hard I was embarrassed my friends would see), and I'm nowhere near 'mastering' the game. Hell, even on normal difficulty, there's some nations I've never gotten to work properly/ gotten out of their measly starting positions. I'm looking at you Ryukyu. Also EU IV has, in my opinion, ripened with every DLC. I'm not supporting Paradox DLC policy, but we should admit that there's few games that have enjoyed 10 years of consistent development. Edit: I disagree with the war portion of the video to some extent. There *are* ways to acquire territory without war, but diplomatic inheritance is really the only feasible one. Sure you can vassalize some people peacefully, but it's rare-ish. I wish "threaten war" would allow for claiming more than a single province, that would alleviate the issue somewhat.
Adding to what you mentioned in this video. Eu4 has a vast amount of Achievments in a variety of difficulties making it like a ladder you can slowly climb up and keeping you in for a long time.
oh yeah and if eu4 looks daunting at the start, it is, alot of people joke about the fact that you only complete the tutorial after reaching 1k hours in the game
I have 1300 hours on EU IV and I ve never played fan favourites like Bahmanis (India), Ming (China), or anything in Japan. Despite the huge time I ve spent in this game, I m still a newcomer to most of its features
That's nothing. I've never played England or Castile. Also, if you're going to play in Japan, Shimazu or Oda are good picks unless you're going for mass conversions.
I have been playing EU since EU3 In Nomine, got EUIV since launch, and still play the heck out of it~! Latest DLC King of Kings added a ton of cool stuff~!
Once, I played as Ottoman, conquered the whole Europe and Africa continent… Got 3 colonies too big be to handle, one at America, one at Africa, one at Australia… in the end, my downfall was my own colonies as I gave them an autonomy and made them as vassals, two of them started a rebellion against me and conquered my territories one by one… now if you’ve played this game long enough, you’ll know that the biggest challenge of all is to conquer the European nations, even if most of them are a small country, but if you attacked them, they will make a big enough collision to take down your empire… took me 3 years of playing hours to achieve my conquest of Europe. Asia on the hand, quite interesting, while they are a few powerful nations, but they’re lacking of the technology advancement. But, I chose to not to invade Asia as they were not posing any threats to my empire. But, certainly, I never expected my vassals too be much more stronger than my army in just a few short span of time…
i am severly vision impaired and the slow pace and ability to use screen magnification, make eu4 (just under 7000 hrs) and hoi4 ( just under 17000 hrs), my two favourite games, my main gripe with them is how difficult or obscure the steam achievements are to get in both titles
myself and many others got this game so we could do paradox mega-campaigns, at first i hated this game, played it for 2 hours and left it for a week. Then i found the time and the patience to learn and watch some videos and then i played this game nonstop for a month, on the same save, all i wanted to do was play eu4, all i ever thought about was eu4. Honestly is a good game, recommend that if you get this game you also get vic 2 and continue your save into vic 2 using the eu4-vic 2 save converter. I'd say play vic 3 but it looks like a mobile game
When I first saw a lets play of EU4 I thought: Ugh, what is that?! But I continued wathcing because the player was a history buff who enriched the experience with his knowledge. This was ~2016. Since then I have sunk more hours into EU4 than in Fallout 4, Skyrim and both XCom games (Xcom 1 even witht he long war mod) combined. And: the game has become better and better. It is probably the best time sinker ever designed and unlike with HOI4 the battle focus is not the dominant design feature and doesn't harm the playing experience as much as in HOI4. The DLCs sum up to quite some money but many are absolutely worth it.
3k hours in EU4 and around 2k in ck2 and ck3 combined, those games are truly a blessing. i remember being horribly ill in middle school for over 2 month and those were a great time killer. even now time from time i come back to eu4, to check out new dlcs and mechanics.
The other game that is like EUIV is Cruzader's Kings (specially CK2 and CK3), cause it's also endless although it focuses only in Medieval times. Imagine if both games could merge it would just be PERFECTION
Boy do I have news. There is (or at least was) a official ck2-eu4 savegame converter where it takes your ck2 savegame and turns it into an eu4 mod. I don't know if it still works though.
As someone who has played Eu4 for 10 years and 4k hours it's because it's not the same game. Each expansion changed things and after so many of them it's just a new game. It's the same reason a game like wow is still around.
I love Paradox games but haven’t tried EU4. Could you elaborate on the fact that some people, as far as I’ve heard, call this game “a map painter”? Thanks and keep up the good work
It’s because countries start tiny and expand into border gore and eventually form huge countries. It’s a fun game, I got couple about 90 hrs in it and still haven’t grasp how it works. Can’t wait to actually colonize the new world
Some Paradox fans use the “map painter” terminology as a weird way of boasting about how good they supposedly are. Maybe I’m just not good lol, but this game doesn’t deserve that title at all, in my opinion. I don’t think any of them do, for that matter.
@@soberman1520 In the technical sense, sure, the object is to expand your territory, so they’re all map painters. But by that definition, almost all strategy games are map painters. Some fans tend to use “map painter” in a critical way, as though the game is so simplistic that there’s no challenge. In my opinion, Paradox games are a lot of things, but simplistic is not one of them. They may be the most complex games I own lol. I’ve put well over 100 hours into this one, and I know there are still mechanics I am not leveraging to their fullest potential.
Yup, I have 7.3K hours in the game and it ain't stopping anytime soon. Once you finally burn out after 4-5 thousand hours, mods open up the door to infinite gametime. Anbennar is for sure the most complete overhaul with the most new mechanics and just mind blowing amounts of content. One of my smaller favorites is Third Odyssey, an alternate history mod where you play as the Byzantines who get on a bunch of ships and sail to the new world to escape the Ottoman Empire.
For me it's also the fact they let you play on patches as far back as 1.4 many of which you can play with ironman and earn achievement just as well on the current patch. My favorite patch is 1.18 and I've went back to it and played it on it for so long.
Anbennar mod changed everything for me, lot of lore, lot of mechanics, their own UI for their mechanics, its a fantasy setting, and its about to release in 20th November a new update. After you play Anbennar, the normal game will feel empty.
My journey to discover this game was insane. It started with a creator called kootra who was part of the youtube group the creatures playing mount and blade warband. Then wanting to see more of that game i found surreal beliefs and his total war content. Through watching those videos i was recommended by youtube civilization 5 content by the solar gamer. Then i looked for more civ 5 and found a creator called golffreak246 who had a single crusader kings 2 lets play. And finally after him i found arumba’s hungry Hungary ck2 series and all his eu4 lets plays.
i got EU4 off of the game pass a year or so ago, it was too complex for me at the time, so i mainly played hoi4(also on the game pass). eventually i got kinda tired of hoi4 and wanted to try out eu4. it was amazing. i just recently have gotten my other friend(the person who introduced me to hoi4) to start learning eu4.
I have over 500 hours on EU4, and even though I don't consider myself a great player, I at least have some idea about what I'm doing, but when I tried to play HOI4, I got completely lost.
If it wasnt for World of Warcraft Universalis i would probably not being playing the game for so long. But tbf vanilla had gotten amazing by the years as well so its perfect.
I remember first getting into EU4 - many years ago during a random Twitch raid I was sent to Shenryyr playing EU4. I - as many other viewers - didn't understand shit what was happening on screen, but I instantly fell in love. Now after over 2000 hours of playtime I truly can say: I think I finally finished the tutorial phase
One big caveat is needed. Paradox games are basically released in their beta. You then pay a lifetime of dlc, (half of which is free on the update, but the better half has to be unlocked via payment) to enjoy and enrich the game. It's a solid model, as the end product is typically worth the dlc price, albeit the dlc is best bought on sale. Ck2 imo did it best, until the monks and mystics dlc which made the player OP and easily able to game the system.
I've had this game for over 10 years and have as of now 9123 hours in the game far more than any other game I own!! It's my favorite game of all time by far!!!
I remember watching youtube letsplays of the game all the way back in 2014 and i finally tried the game and loved it. Its the perfect map painting grand strategy game for me. My favorite mod for the game Anbennar is getting a huge update release tomorrow
I started playing EU4 a year ago, I used to play Hoi4 for 2k hours before that and even thought eu4 was more difficult than hoi4, however then I realized that the game was extremely addictive and easier to learn than hoi4. Now my target is to achieve another 2k in another paradox game :)
Once u have mastered the first steep learning curve, it is the gift that keeps on giving and has crazy replayablity! And u even have not talked about the best Mod of any Game of all time! Anbennar (Even if it showed up shortly in your workshop page) To this date 3k+ hours Maingame and probably 2 to 3k+ hours Anbennar... yeah the the time over 8years (for me) is crazy...
Since Victoria 3, Imperator, and CK3 are either massive downgrades, dead on arrival, or won't reach par with their predecessors for decades, it's no wonder people prefer to go back to EU4.
EU4 is the game that I first made a mod for, it’s just a really easy game to mod, I couldn’t imagine trying to make the simplest mod for 99% of games I play
Well i started my journey with EU4 as 12 y old in 2015, it became one of my fav games for whole time, it made me passionate about history. Its 2023, im 20 y old and I have 4k hours in this game, and i can easly tell u that it is one of best games i ever played,along with other PDX games.
They are killing it off on purpose now as the game hasn’t received actual meaningful content in the last 4 yrs (since emperor dlc mostly). All the DLC in that time just added shiny mission buttons for people who want to make their nations op not by their own merits but thorough following a specific objective to get the buffs. A good example of this is if you compare warfare in this game vs Victoria 2. In EU4 defending on a mountain in a pvp war will give you +2 to your dice rolls, which won’t matter at all if your enemy has just used all those combat mission rewards they saved or if they just have a 30-40% advantage in numbers or quality. In Victoria 2 by comparison, it is possible to win a war against the greatest powers through terrain and smart supply management, things that are actually interesting and make you feel like you have achieved something meaningful. After 2k hrs in EU4 I wish Vic2 had this much post launch support instead.
Pro tip: If you really want to try out the game but don't have enough money to buy it/ buy it's dlc's remember that map games are really easy to "install by other means" due to how litle space they ocupy on your computer.
EU4 has a dlc subscription service. $5/month and you get everything, just cancel when you don't feel like playing. It's a solution if you don't want to select the "Hoist the Black Flag" decision.
@@ChrMuslimThor they aren't a decent company and definitely do not deserve the money they ask. They are still learning how to get as much profit from as little development as possible. They were (up to now with the last trash dlc) trying to fix the big mistake they realised they made with leviathan. Are they as bad as (for example) CA (creative assembly)? Yes, they are just not as dumb. to this day, if you play on 4k, you gotta roam in the files to manually increase the GUI to a size in which you can see shit. After 10 years, it should be an option in the menu. And let's not get into optimization, because through the years it got worse
I played EU4 to death. I played one favourite nation over and over and over. Then I play other country, it's like playing a new game. You have to relearn most of the things you thought will work, but not work with the new nation. Very fun indeed. But I think I've reached my limit and wanting for more, so comes Victoria 3...
Even more cool is that even after you have "mastered" the game with around 5k total hours like me, you still have a lot to learn and adapt to in large multiplayer games.
The monthly subscription for dlc model is what keeps me coming back. For $5 a month i can pop in and play for a month or two with about $500 worth of DLC i was never ever going to pay out for.
It’s a shame the new dlc team (tinto or something similar) are crap and don’t seem to understand balance. Having played every year for a decade, it’s only since they took over that I’ve started to go off the game. More and more bloat and “flavour” but no real need for it. I remember when reaching 100k force limit was an achievement, not a given. I remember when the ottomans were hard but manageable opponents. Not a chimera of dlc buffs and de buffs. I remember when reaching Australia in 1550 took planning and some luck. Now it belongs to Portugal before you even get there. I’ll still try it out every year but whatever magic it had has long gone for me.
Over 2k hours on the clock and I still find new interesting things: new strategies, new ways the mechanics interact, new events, etc. More than 80 days combined, nearly three months worth of gametime, and there are still new things waiting for me that keep me engaged! This game, along with the Ezio Trilogy of Assassin's Creed, is what sparked genuine interest in history in me and so many others. It has near infinite replayability with all the different playstyles and strategies you can employ with all those nations, and the potential for creating your own stories, rewriting history yourself: What if it was the Republic of Novgorod that united Russia? What if Byzantium managed to resist Turks and regained its lost lands? What if the Ottomans kept on going past Wiena and onwards to Rome, Paris, London and Lisobon? What if Poland was STRONK and had actual competent leadership over the centuries?! So many possibilities, so many fun scenarios, the only thing limiting you really is your imagination. And all that supported with regular new content.
Damn... True. I still play it a few hours a week. It's just so good. There are so many possibilities and random events. I never had twice the same game.
Nobody does strategy quite like Paradox. Their DLC policy looks bad from the outside but nobody else has made a strategy game even a quarter as deep and replayable as EU4, HOI4 or Stellaris and the DLC is the reason why those games exist.
I curse the day I started playing EU4 8 years ago. It became my addiction and I haven´t been able to play other games fully because of it. Every time I play a game the thought that I could play eu4 instead drives me crazy. Best and worst game ever.
"It helps you understand..." well to an extent. Honestly playing as Venice I find an alliance with Poland and France to be the most effective. If you get attacked by someone in the East, Poland can help out. If you get attacked by someone in the west, France will help. Allies broke? Use a butt ton of money to make them not broke. Idk who Venice actually had for formal allies, if any. Pretty sure it wasn't France and Poland, not simultaneously anyway. Also, I completely agree about the balance between war and diplomacy. HOI4 is "there will be war because peace is boring" and neglects peacetime mechanics to a degree. Vic3 is the opposite, "this is a geopolitical game with a focus on economics and internal politics, war is on the sidelines." Both are good, but can get redundant. As such both have made strides in the areas they don't focus on peace is more fun in HOI4 and war in Vic3 than it used to be, but still no where near enough to get out of that zone. EU4 has plenty of factions that can war or weasel out of war as a player prefers, making each more fun in turn.
*Laughs in 2497.8 hours* I have 6650 hours in Hearts of Iron 4, not a brag, just because of it's replayability, every single game has had a slight variation of what happened last game, even when I was achievement hunting on hearts of iron 4.
The game just keeps on giving. I've started playing around 2015 I think, about to hit 5000 hours. Is that a lot? Yes. Is it uncommon to have this many hours in this community? Not at all. That makes this game stand out, there's just a lot of veterans, and I mean it
Bro i just got into eu4. Played basically everyother Paradox game but eu4 was so intimidating never got into it... until i did... i feel like i opened pandora box, i cannot stop playing eu4 its so goddamn good.
Have almost 2k hours played and wanna say that eu4 offering a lot of ways to do what you need but when you become a master you will understand that war is simplest and fastest way to get what you need of course if you can wage it
nowadays this is the only paradox game i can open up and not get bored within 30 minutes, idk what it is about ck3 and vic3 i just feel literally nothing when playing them
One of the best games of all time. The Knights run is my favorite. Probably restarted near 100 times. Best Run I've taken down to Ethiopia, all Maghreb, Italy, Balkans, Ottoman Empire. Started on Iberia before I got a bit bored.
2 years ago I thought about playing eu4 but I was like "eu5 is probably just around the corner and I dont want to buy all these eu4 DLC's so I'll just wait" It wasn't around the corner at all. That shit aint releasing.
Things you need to know when playing EU4:
1. agressive expansion is just a number
2. overextension is just a number
3. corruption is not just a number, keep that shit low
Legit HAHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
4. You will see a lot of comets.
@@YataTheFifteenth and you'll start hating them and astronomy as well lol
I will go bankrupt before I let my Corruption go above 1.
This game is awesome because it’s infinitely replayable, and it’s a fantasy for people who want to historical rewriting
I fondly remember when my Norse empire took Jerusalem :D
trying to restore Byzantine Empire is always beautiful in this game...for example
Yes that is true also every patch new strats and ways to play are created.
@@dand7763getting butt fucked by the Ottomans while trying to wage war against Epirus every single Byzantium run is less awesome.
@@dand7763 Restoring the Byzantine Empire to colonize the Carribean is a dream come true in EU4
EU and CK are games that fulfill such a niche that they will never die.
There is nothing like them.
Imperialism game from Strategic Simulations came before EU. It was my first dip into grand strategy games.
I can't believe its been 10 years, feels like only a few years ago I saw it on the steam store banner that it had just come out. The game has changed so much and its crazy that most players today didn't get to see what it was like early on. RIP square Memel
"Nice memel"
EU4 when it came out was so wack. no manual development, no support independence, the old style missions...
@@Podzhagitel oh god the old rng mission system
It was still better than EU3, but yeah... It took an expansion or three before it stopped feeling half-finished.
RIP having to siege every single province.
The replayability is actually insane. You can replay the same nation 5-6 times and still have a different experience every time, changing up your strategy, your ideas, your "build" in a way that only matchmade multiplayer games can really compete with. And it's all singleplayer. And that's for one nation- even only going into the middlegame, plumbing the depths of one country like that can take 200+ hours. And there are hundreds of playable countries. Even if you only pick the ones with unique mechanics, there are still close to 100 fun, worthwhile countries to play. And this is all without mods.
Word. I have 1500-ish hour in this game. Mostly played as Denmark lol
It seems like just yesterday that I stumbled across Arumba's CK2 guide, which led me to playing CK2 and then his EU4 guide which led me to play EU4 lol. 10 years later I'm still playing EU4 and CK3/CK2.
Similar story. I read about EU4 in a magazine. Found it on steam for preorder and you got eu3 and CK2 to play before it released. I have thousands of hours in the EU and CK games now
Similar story. I read about EU4 in a magazine. Found it on steam for preorder and you got eu3 and CK2 to play before it released. I have thousands of hours in the EU and CK games now
Arumba was my intro into Paradox titles too - I don't know what happened with his relationship with Paradox but I miss those days!
@@primepossum6997 Same, I'm not sure what happened to him either. I kinda stopped watching him around 2016/17 and I think that's when their relationship "ended". He use to be a huge contributor to the community too, quite sad.
@@HEEHEEBOIIhe fell out with Paradox a few years ago and stopped RUclips pretty much all together after some personal stuff. But he still streams over on Twitch!
Truly the TF2 of Paradox games it's undying, it's a great game, it's a timeless classic and it has a great community a true masterpiece of it's genre.
Yes, I love Paradox Games and I hate their DLC Policy, because they change the Vanilla Game that they are balanced for their latest DLC. That sucks!
Example: KI and Look of Standard Civ6: balanced and updated
Standard Stellaris: KI fucked up, DLC "ads" everywhere.
In the future, I will dislike every game of Paradox, because this is sooo annoying
@@LaMartiniquee Go tweet about it
that one mf who is stuck in 2016: oh mah gawg is dat a fockin OnD3RtAeL referance?!?!
The PDX game model is hated by penny-pinchers. But for long-term game support it is ingenious. 10-20 dollar DLC every 6 months across a decade generates more money than a 100 dollar game every ten.
yeah same I think this kinda model is best for games that are meant to be supported a decade or two, especially in an industry where short term profit incentives are important . I still dislike it a lot but that's more because it feels like they make some DLC feel more like a necessity than a choice.
I know for a fact though that EU4 wouldn't be alive if it got the Creative Assembly treatment which is to be abandoned in 2 years with really only 1 or 2 major content updates. I think that treating games that are meant to have infinite replayability like that is just dumb
I’ve spent what must be about $400 dollars on this game, but the amount of time and fun I’ve had from it has been extraordinary, and as you say, it’s usually $20 twice a year or so, which isn’t bad at all, for me anyway.
"Penny-pinchers" aka people who want a fresh new game with modern performance as opposed to a 10 year old life-support cashgrab
@@drdray0876 Not everyone can afford gaming PCs most triple AAA games are geared towards. Not everyone lives in the first world.
My gripe is the DLC as of late has not been worth the $20, and also releasing horribly buggy.
Stellaris is my favorite of their games and I haven't purchased the last two major ones, and don't get me started on the latest one being $20 but only giving about the same amount of content as Distant Stars.
As a tip for anyone that hasn't tried the mod yet, Anbennar is in my opinion the best total conversion mod of any game I've ever played it renewed my love for the game and it makes for a refreshing difference to the achievement hunting ways I have in vanilla EU4.
Seconding Anbennar, the best mod of any game I've played
Thirding(?) Anbennar, it is so good and I won't play vanilla ever again since it is just better
Absolutely love it! I play it with a friend a lot and currently have a game we play every few days a bit. So many different mechanics I want in normal EU4. Love that it also has custom unit models, I wish they'd add even more like dwarves and stuff.
I was so sad he didn't mention that mod! Truly the best mod I've ever played for any game.
One of the most impactful parts of the mod is that the world is far larger, with way more development, and most nations are far more specialized.
This makes it so you can play yourself into a particular style, or run up against a surprisingly difficult enemy in a way that doesn't exist in EU4 base game.
Fighting Bhuvauri vs Switzerland is like night and day despite being on paper defensive nations with a focus on mercenaries.
Another big benefit of the mod is that it takes waaay longer to be the undisputed #1 Great Power, whereas in the base game it's not terribly hard to be in the top 3 as nearly any nation within 30-50 years of game start.
In Anbennar, it's not uncommon to run across nations that have over 2k development and aren't even in the top 4, unlike in base game EU4 where China barely crests 1000 development.
I've got ~3-4k hours between 2 accounts, and most of that time is in Anbennar Lol
EU4 is like _the_ game you could play forever on an island
Until Spain arrive and colonize it
There's also Age of Empires 2 which is still alive. Not in its original form, but the definitive edition. Still, pretty impressive for a game that was launched in 1999 and has kept most of the mechanics since back then. It has recently received a lot of balance updates and a new DLC.
EU4 is the Skyrim of grand strategy games
You mean Skyrim is the EU4 of Fantasy RPGs
It’s more like the dark souls of strategy games
@@joshoshoshosh lo, ds won't even get close to it. Moreover both games are dead, EU4 definitely ain't dead
Quality video, those were exactly the reasons, why i love and play this game for 10 years now.
I would make one addition though.
The close connection between the hardcore fanbase and the developers from PDX.
More often than not you see player opinions being largely ignored, unless something gamebreaking happens.
Over the course of the years i had the feeling, that the devs always tried to build their concepts around player feedback.
Of course this did not always work out perfectly, but the game was significantly improved every single year.
If they messed up, they fixed it. That is company you buy a dlc from, even if it seems.. questionable at first.
PS: A special thanks should definitely go to all the history nerds, who fought to make this game as historically accurate and detailed as it is today!
It’s the best relationship between a large company and its players. You don’t even have to be part of the hardcore fanbase. Just comment on any recent Dev Diary and your opinion will most likely be read, and there are good odds they’ll even reply to your questions directly.
i hate the paradox dlc policy, but i really love how they interact with their community and especially their youtubers
560 hours in 3 months. Very addictive game
do you have the dlc?
If you didnt played rdr2 you should play
Great game, I've spent countless hours on it and I'm still not done but I hope they're working on EU5 now!
Didn’t they just release another DLC? Idk. I think they’re still working with Eu4
They announced they will be making another DLC for next year atleast still. So no Eu5
@@dominator1914 Paradox is a very large studio, so there's a chance that Tinto (the studio developing EU4) is simply running maintenance. Plus, the past 4-5 DLCs haven't added any new mechanics (like how Common Sense added development), so it's clear that they're slowing down anyway.
EU5 won't be as good as EU4 without all the support and development EU4 had over the years
@@cs0345it's gonna be like ck3, nice for 100h or so but lacking all the DLCs and updates that made the previous game so good. And then it's gonna take years to achieve the same again
A truly special game. Really started my love of Early Modern Era history and easily clears any other game I have at just under 2100 hours. Still learning new things every day.
Started playing EU1 more than 20 years ago, cannot stop playing EU4 today. Absolute icon of a game.
Anbennar is what keeps me playing EU4.
I have thousands of hours in this game. Every campaign is different from the last, every country has a unique and often challenging starting position. The multiplayer can be super fun if you have a lot of friends that play. It is simply my favorite game of all time.
Ok ok this turning into a series and i like it keep up the great content man
I kinda liked idea as well. Helps people to find out some exceptional games that are still kicking
Tip: Buy the subscription for 5 dollars, cancel it and launch the game directly from the executable in the game files. Paradox Games don't have DRM or checks like that so you'll keep the DLC forever until you press launch in the launcher (Accidentally opening the launcher won't remove your DLC, clicking on launch from there will)
I fully agree with the "take[ing] far longer to reach mastery" aspect. I've got something like 1400 hours on steam and another 3-400 in offline mode (was binging so hard I was embarrassed my friends would see), and I'm nowhere near 'mastering' the game. Hell, even on normal difficulty, there's some nations I've never gotten to work properly/ gotten out of their measly starting positions. I'm looking at you Ryukyu.
Also EU IV has, in my opinion, ripened with every DLC. I'm not supporting Paradox DLC policy, but we should admit that there's few games that have enjoyed 10 years of consistent development.
Edit: I disagree with the war portion of the video to some extent. There *are* ways to acquire territory without war, but diplomatic inheritance is really the only feasible one. Sure you can vassalize some people peacefully, but it's rare-ish. I wish "threaten war" would allow for claiming more than a single province, that would alleviate the issue somewhat.
Well 1444 hours is the length of the tutorial so looks like you just finished it. Congratulations!
Adding to what you mentioned in this video. Eu4 has a vast amount of Achievments in a variety of difficulties making it like a ladder you can slowly climb up and keeping you in for a long time.
oh yeah and if eu4 looks daunting at the start, it is, alot of people joke about the fact that you only complete the tutorial after reaching 1k hours in the game
Well, they aren’t entirely wrong
@@sleir7556Agreed. I have 4,000 hours and I can confidently now say, I somewhat understand what I’m doing 50% of the time.
@@Fallout3131expand infrastructure is op
I have 1300 hours on EU IV and I ve never played fan favourites like Bahmanis (India), Ming (China), or anything in Japan. Despite the huge time I ve spent in this game, I m still a newcomer to most of its features
That's nothing. I've never played England or Castile.
Also, if you're going to play in Japan, Shimazu or Oda are good picks unless you're going for mass conversions.
I've only played EU2, in the 2000s. And I played it a lot. X)
I didn't know this franchise was going stronger than ever. That's cool.
I have been playing EU since EU3 In Nomine, got EUIV since launch, and still play the heck out of it~! Latest DLC King of Kings added a ton of cool stuff~!
Once, I played as Ottoman, conquered the whole Europe and Africa continent… Got 3 colonies too big be to handle, one at America, one at Africa, one at Australia… in the end, my downfall was my own colonies as I gave them an autonomy and made them as vassals, two of them started a rebellion against me and conquered my territories one by one… now if you’ve played this game long enough, you’ll know that the biggest challenge of all is to conquer the European nations, even if most of them are a small country, but if you attacked them, they will make a big enough collision to take down your empire… took me 3 years of playing hours to achieve my conquest of Europe. Asia on the hand, quite interesting, while they are a few powerful nations, but they’re lacking of the technology advancement. But, I chose to not to invade Asia as they were not posing any threats to my empire. But, certainly, I never expected my vassals too be much more stronger than my army in just a few short span of time…
i am severly vision impaired and the slow pace and ability to use screen magnification, make eu4 (just under 7000 hrs) and hoi4 ( just under 17000 hrs), my two favourite games, my main gripe with them is how difficult or obscure the steam achievements are to get in both titles
They are for the Ultra-Sweaty players who do nothing but exploit the game.
man, you have totally played hoi4 for 708 days
myself and many others got this game so we could do paradox mega-campaigns, at first i hated this game, played it for 2 hours and left it for a week. Then i found the time and the patience to learn and watch some videos and then i played this game nonstop for a month, on the same save, all i wanted to do was play eu4, all i ever thought about was eu4. Honestly is a good game, recommend that if you get this game you also get vic 2 and continue your save into vic 2 using the eu4-vic 2 save converter. I'd say play vic 3 but it looks like a mobile game
When I first saw a lets play of EU4 I thought: Ugh, what is that?! But I continued wathcing because the player was a history buff who enriched the experience with his knowledge. This was ~2016. Since then I have sunk more hours into EU4 than in Fallout 4, Skyrim and both XCom games (Xcom 1 even witht he long war mod) combined. And: the game has become better and better. It is probably the best time sinker ever designed and unlike with HOI4 the battle focus is not the dominant design feature and doesn't harm the playing experience as much as in HOI4. The DLCs sum up to quite some money but many are absolutely worth it.
3k hours in EU4 and around 2k in ck2 and ck3 combined, those games are truly a blessing. i remember being horribly ill in middle school for over 2 month and those were a great time killer. even now time from time i come back to eu4, to check out new dlcs and mechanics.
The other game that is like EUIV is Cruzader's Kings (specially CK2 and CK3), cause it's also endless although it focuses only in Medieval times. Imagine if both games could merge it would just be PERFECTION
Boy do I have news. There is (or at least was) a official ck2-eu4 savegame converter where it takes your ck2 savegame and turns it into an eu4 mod. I don't know if it still works though.
@@Mowraq it's not quite up to date but there is a fan-made converter which still works I believe.
As someone who has played Eu4 for 10 years and 4k hours it's because it's not the same game. Each expansion changed things and after so many of them it's just a new game. It's the same reason a game like wow is still around.
I love Paradox games but haven’t tried EU4. Could you elaborate on the fact that some people, as far as I’ve heard, call this game “a map painter”? Thanks and keep up the good work
It’s because countries start tiny and expand into border gore and eventually form huge countries. It’s a fun game, I got couple about 90 hrs in it and still haven’t grasp how it works. Can’t wait to actually colonize the new world
Come on all paradox games is map painter right 😂
Some Paradox fans use the “map painter” terminology as a weird way of boasting about how good they supposedly are. Maybe I’m just not good lol, but this game doesn’t deserve that title at all, in my opinion. I don’t think any of them do, for that matter.
@@CarterElkins why not?
@@soberman1520 In the technical sense, sure, the object is to expand your territory, so they’re all map painters. But by that definition, almost all strategy games are map painters.
Some fans tend to use “map painter” in a critical way, as though the game is so simplistic that there’s no challenge. In my opinion, Paradox games are a lot of things, but simplistic is not one of them. They may be the most complex games I own lol. I’ve put well over 100 hours into this one, and I know there are still mechanics I am not leveraging to their fullest potential.
Yup, I have 7.3K hours in the game and it ain't stopping anytime soon. Once you finally burn out after 4-5 thousand hours, mods open up the door to infinite gametime.
Anbennar is for sure the most complete overhaul with the most new mechanics and just mind blowing amounts of content.
One of my smaller favorites is Third Odyssey, an alternate history mod where you play as the Byzantines who get on a bunch of ships and sail to the new world to escape the Ottoman Empire.
For me it's also the fact they let you play on patches as far back as 1.4 many of which you can play with ironman and earn achievement just as well on the current patch. My favorite patch is 1.18 and I've went back to it and played it on it for so long.
As a CK3 player, I can confidently assert Anbennar > Elder Scrolls Universalis
Anbennar mod changed everything for me, lot of lore, lot of mechanics, their own UI for their mechanics, its a fantasy setting, and its about to release in 20th November a new update.
After you play Anbennar, the normal game will feel empty.
My journey to discover this game was insane. It started with a creator called kootra who was part of the youtube group the creatures playing mount and blade warband. Then wanting to see more of that game i found surreal beliefs and his total war content. Through watching those videos i was recommended by youtube civilization 5 content by the solar gamer. Then i looked for more civ 5 and found a creator called golffreak246 who had a single crusader kings 2 lets play. And finally after him i found arumba’s hungry Hungary ck2 series and all his eu4 lets plays.
i got EU4 off of the game pass a year or so ago, it was too complex for me at the time, so i mainly played hoi4(also on the game pass). eventually i got kinda tired of hoi4 and wanted to try out eu4. it was amazing. i just recently have gotten my other friend(the person who introduced me to hoi4) to start learning eu4.
Hoi4 is great but what you can do is limited.
EU4 you can write your own history 😎
Give Vicky 3 another chance. It's definitely *not* a mobile game.
I have over 500 hours on EU4, and even though I don't consider myself a great player, I at least have some idea about what I'm doing, but when I tried to play HOI4, I got completely lost.
If it wasnt for World of Warcraft Universalis i would probably not being playing the game for so long. But tbf vanilla had gotten amazing by the years as well so its perfect.
a big plus is that the dev team listens to feedback and suggestions
"HAS STARTED" they've just learned their lesson after f leviathan. Please, for the love of god, do not forget that abomination
With mods it feels like an entirely new game, my favorite mod is Anbennar
I was just about to try out Anbennar. What countries do you recommend?
any of the starting date recommended countries are great, my favorite is Wesdam and Arannen@@pbw_
I remember first getting into EU4 - many years ago during a random Twitch raid I was sent to Shenryyr playing EU4. I - as many other viewers - didn't understand shit what was happening on screen, but I instantly fell in love. Now after over 2000 hours of playtime I truly can say: I think I finally finished the tutorial phase
One big caveat is needed. Paradox games are basically released in their beta. You then pay a lifetime of dlc, (half of which is free on the update, but the better half has to be unlocked via payment) to enjoy and enrich the game. It's a solid model, as the end product is typically worth the dlc price, albeit the dlc is best bought on sale.
Ck2 imo did it best, until the monks and mystics dlc which made the player OP and easily able to game the system.
I buy the 5$ sub for a month and play it to death personally so I get so much value for my $ and If I want to end the subscription I do
I am legend….. and apparently it’s time for glasses 😆
❤️❤️❤️❤️
I've had this game for over 10 years and have as of now 9123 hours in the game far more than any other game I own!! It's my favorite game of all time by far!!!
I remember watching youtube letsplays of the game all the way back in 2014 and i finally tried the game and loved it. Its the perfect map painting grand strategy game for me. My favorite mod for the game Anbennar is getting a huge update release tomorrow
I started playing EU4 a year ago, I used to play Hoi4 for 2k hours before that and even thought eu4 was more difficult than hoi4, however then I realized that the game was extremely addictive and easier to learn than hoi4. Now my target is to achieve another 2k in another paradox game :)
Once u have mastered the first steep learning curve, it is the gift that keeps on giving and has crazy replayablity!
And u even have not talked about the best Mod of any Game of all time! Anbennar (Even if it showed up shortly in your workshop page)
To this date 3k+ hours Maingame and probably 2 to 3k+ hours Anbennar... yeah the the time over 8years (for me) is crazy...
Since Victoria 3, Imperator, and CK3 are either massive downgrades, dead on arrival, or won't reach par with their predecessors for decades, it's no wonder people prefer to go back to EU4.
I'm still playing it because I'm hoping one day I can finish a game without it freezing up and crashing.
you should do a video about Team Fortress 2, a game released in 2007. It went though a lot and is still kicking strong.
I am legend; tfw the mod section entirely misses the existence of Anbennar
EU4 is the game that I first made a mod for, it’s just a really easy game to mod, I couldn’t imagine trying to make the simplest mod for 99% of games I play
I only have 6k hours, I still gotta get those numbers up
So true bestie
Well i started my journey with EU4 as 12 y old in 2015, it became one of my fav games for whole time, it made me passionate about history. Its 2023, im 20 y old and I have 4k hours in this game, and i can easly tell u that it is one of best games i ever played,along with other PDX games.
I've played this God accursed game for over 3k hours and never understood how trade works, which is exactly why I love it so much
They are killing it off on purpose now as the game hasn’t received actual meaningful content in the last 4 yrs (since emperor dlc mostly). All the DLC in that time just added shiny mission buttons for people who want to make their nations op not by their own merits but thorough following a specific objective to get the buffs. A good example of this is if you compare warfare in this game vs Victoria 2. In EU4 defending on a mountain in a pvp war will give you +2 to your dice rolls, which won’t matter at all if your enemy has just used all those combat mission rewards they saved or if they just have a 30-40% advantage in numbers or quality. In Victoria 2 by comparison, it is possible to win a war against the greatest powers through terrain and smart supply management, things that are actually interesting and make you feel like you have achieved something meaningful. After 2k hrs in EU4 I wish Vic2 had this much post launch support instead.
Pro tip: If you really want to try out the game but don't have enough money to buy it/ buy it's dlc's remember that map games are really easy to "install by other means" due to how litle space they ocupy on your computer.
It's just a free trial after all
For shame, they are a decent company who deserve to get paid for their work.
@@ChrMuslimThor Bro they're a multi milion dolar company you don't have to defend then lmao
EU4 has a dlc subscription service. $5/month and you get everything, just cancel when you don't feel like playing. It's a solution if you don't want to select the "Hoist the Black Flag" decision.
@@ChrMuslimThor they aren't a decent company and definitely do not deserve the money they ask. They are still learning how to get as much profit from as little development as possible. They were (up to now with the last trash dlc) trying to fix the big mistake they realised they made with leviathan. Are they as bad as (for example) CA (creative assembly)? Yes, they are just not as dumb.
to this day, if you play on 4k, you gotta roam in the files to manually increase the GUI to a size in which you can see shit. After 10 years, it should be an option in the menu. And let's not get into optimization, because through the years it got worse
I hope that when and if eu5 comes it’s as amazing
2k hours on the game, and I can tell that you did a very good job :)
I don't know why but this map painting simulator is so addicted and thats how it is.
You should check out the anbennar mod for this game, it may be the greatest mod for any game ever made
Because it achieved the unthinkable: Unlimited replayability
Men with the touch of the tism will never let this game die
I played EU4 to death. I played one favourite nation over and over and over. Then I play other country, it's like playing a new game. You have to relearn most of the things you thought will work, but not work with the new nation. Very fun indeed. But I think I've reached my limit and wanting for more, so comes Victoria 3...
Even more cool is that even after you have "mastered" the game with around 5k total hours like me, you still have a lot to learn and adapt to in large multiplayer games.
Another shoutout should go to CK2
As a player with 3000+ hours I can confirm I haven’t mastered this game perfectly. There is always some a tiny detail I haven’t heard of
The monthly subscription for dlc model is what keeps me coming back. For $5 a month i can pop in and play for a month or two with about $500 worth of DLC i was never ever going to pay out for.
It’s a shame the new dlc team (tinto or something similar) are crap and don’t seem to understand balance. Having played every year for a decade, it’s only since they took over that I’ve started to go off the game. More and more bloat and “flavour” but no real need for it.
I remember when reaching 100k force limit was an achievement, not a given.
I remember when the ottomans were hard but manageable opponents. Not a chimera of dlc buffs and de buffs.
I remember when reaching Australia in 1550 took planning and some luck. Now it belongs to Portugal before you even get there.
I’ll still try it out every year but whatever magic it had has long gone for me.
As someone with 1.5K hours on this game, which is on the lower end for an EU4 player I can confirm its a fantastic game!
Over 2k hours on the clock and I still find new interesting things: new strategies, new ways the mechanics interact, new events, etc.
More than 80 days combined, nearly three months worth of gametime, and there are still new things waiting for me that keep me engaged!
This game, along with the Ezio Trilogy of Assassin's Creed, is what sparked genuine interest in history in me and so many others.
It has near infinite replayability with all the different playstyles and strategies you can employ with all those nations, and the potential for creating your own stories, rewriting history yourself: What if it was the Republic of Novgorod that united Russia? What if Byzantium managed to resist Turks and regained its lost lands? What if the Ottomans kept on going past Wiena and onwards to Rome, Paris, London and Lisobon? What if Poland was STRONK and had actual competent leadership over the centuries?!
So many possibilities, so many fun scenarios, the only thing limiting you really is your imagination. And all that supported with regular new content.
Eu4 is love, eu4 is life!
Damn... True. I still play it a few hours a week. It's just so good. There are so many possibilities and random events. I never had twice the same game.
Nobody does strategy quite like Paradox. Their DLC policy looks bad from the outside but nobody else has made a strategy game even a quarter as deep and replayable as EU4, HOI4 or Stellaris and the DLC is the reason why those games exist.
I curse the day I started playing EU4 8 years ago. It became my addiction and I haven´t been able to play other games fully because of it. Every time I play a game the thought that I could play eu4 instead drives me crazy. Best and worst game ever.
"It helps you understand..." well to an extent. Honestly playing as Venice I find an alliance with Poland and France to be the most effective. If you get attacked by someone in the East, Poland can help out. If you get attacked by someone in the west, France will help. Allies broke? Use a butt ton of money to make them not broke.
Idk who Venice actually had for formal allies, if any. Pretty sure it wasn't France and Poland, not simultaneously anyway.
Also, I completely agree about the balance between war and diplomacy. HOI4 is "there will be war because peace is boring" and neglects peacetime mechanics to a degree. Vic3 is the opposite, "this is a geopolitical game with a focus on economics and internal politics, war is on the sidelines."
Both are good, but can get redundant. As such both have made strides in the areas they don't focus on peace is more fun in HOI4 and war in Vic3 than it used to be, but still no where near enough to get out of that zone. EU4 has plenty of factions that can war or weasel out of war as a player prefers, making each more fun in turn.
Pls make an episode of the greatest paradox of all: VICTORIA 2! ❤️
*Laughs in 2497.8 hours* I have 6650 hours in Hearts of Iron 4, not a brag, just because of it's replayability, every single game has had a slight variation of what happened last game, even when I was achievement hunting on hearts of iron 4.
Eu4 is the game i put most hours in by a big margin. Like 700 hours oficialy on steam, and back in highschool like 1000 hours on a pirated copy :)
can you imagine what is going to happen when eu players eventually hit position of power, its going to be wild
The game just keeps on giving. I've started playing around 2015 I think, about to hit 5000 hours. Is that a lot? Yes. Is it uncommon to have this many hours in this community? Not at all. That makes this game stand out, there's just a lot of veterans, and I mean it
EU4 is my favorite game ever.. its so deep and engaging, and each DLC gives a new twist to the game.
I’ve tried several times to play it, but just cannot understand how to play it.
Reading these comments makes me want to try again.
Bro i just got into eu4. Played basically everyother Paradox game but eu4 was so intimidating never got into it... until i did... i feel like i opened pandora box, i cannot stop playing eu4 its so goddamn good.
Have almost 2k hours played and wanna say that eu4 offering a lot of ways to do what you need but when you become a master you will understand that war is simplest and fastest way to get what you need of course if you can wage it
nowadays this is the only paradox game i can open up and not get bored within 30 minutes, idk what it is about ck3 and vic3 i just feel literally nothing when playing them
Refuse to die, no, this game gonna be immortal . My fav game ever
Been playing since December 2013 and now have over 5500 hours played. Can confirm this game keeps on going! Deus Vult!
EU4 is love. EU4 is life. Great vid!
Thanks for sharing!
One of the best games of all time. The Knights run is my favorite. Probably restarted near 100 times. Best Run I've taken down to Ethiopia, all Maghreb, Italy, Balkans, Ottoman Empire. Started on Iberia before I got a bit bored.
"Eventually anyone will run out of things to do"
6.8k hours in and no desire to ever play any mod. ESPECIALLY no extended timeline.
Anbennar not referenced 😢
A true crime!
Not the mention the players not included in the stats playing pirated versions for full DLC access.
You can’t get tired of the gameplay if there isn’t any
2 years ago I thought about playing eu4 but I was like "eu5 is probably just around the corner and I dont want to buy all these eu4 DLC's so I'll just wait"
It wasn't around the corner at all. That shit aint releasing.