Ah EU4. The game I might spend way too much time playing, I get reminded that almost weekly by friends and family that I spend over 2 full months of playing this game, and I'm still going.

If anyone asked me if this is a good game I tell them "I love it, but it really depends on what types of game you like.". I partly say this to save them the time and money they will invest in this game if they don't really like strategy games, and also so I won't be responsible for the debt they will surely put themselves in after buying all dlc. But in my humble opinion, if you like strategy games that involve a lot of long term thinking, this is the game for you.

But before I go into detail what you can expect let me first discuss the elephant in the room, the dlc. Because yes there is a lot of dlc and it will cost you a lot to get all of them. "But is it worth it?" Well, that depends. If you just want to play the game with some friends, I'd advice you to not buy the dlc and let your eu4 veteran host the mp's so you can check out all the dlc, or in case of you're all beginners, buy all dlc for one person and let that one host(preferably while a sale is going on (check out paradox plaza if there are no sales on steam, they have them more frequent)). I say this because it is indeed quite expensive and you shouldn't get all dlc at once when you just bought the game. Get the base game and maybe the 'art of war' and 'rights of man' dlc. These are arguably the best dlc for the game at the moment and when you like the game slowly add more dlc to your collection until you have all of them. Then you just wait till devs get a new dlc out and buy that. A lot of people don't like the dlc system but I can accept it for what it is. A way to keep on making money so devs can keep on supporting the game. Really the only other way for this type of support is by either selling loads of In-game currency or by making the game subscription based(which I don't really mind because it would be easier for newer players to get into the game).

But now for the more juicy stuff what is this game all about? Mainly war, colonialism, DEUS VULT, and overall meming history. If you would like a window into the eu4 community, check out some twitch streamers or go to eu4 reddit or watch some youtube videos (which you should do anyway because you are not gonna understand one thing about this game if you don't). I myself got into this game because it looked like the Rome total war campaign mode. Which I really liked. But once in I understood from the bottom of my heart that I am awful at the game. But such is eu4, you will start out losing every war you declare because you weren't paying your troops, but after you learned that and you conquer most of the hre land around you, you notice this little thing called 'coalition'. And you will get pummeled by that. But once you got past that you notice once again that you know nothing. What is a good idea group, how do I get a royal marriage, why does Prussia win a 3:1 battle, how does trade work(no one still knows this one :P), all of this coalesced in the main appeal of the game, the complexity.

"But if it is so complex is it still fun?" yea of course. I have day's where I argue with one of my friends about why a nation is ♥♥♥♥ or why you can't stack idea cost reduction. And not only that but also the fact that even after my (1700h at the time of writing this) I still don't know everything. There is still more to learn and always more nation's to pick. This is a game about planning and long term thinking. The fighting isn't as exciting as in Rome total war due to you not really having an impact once the battle started but it is all about what you did before. Military tech you got to, what ideas you picked, the size of the army you could muster. It is truly something else. Some will compare this game to the CIV games and you might have heard that many civ players went to play this game. I was one of them and you might be one as well. I will say that this game is way more complex than CIV, but if you feel like the got civ all figured out and want something new to dissect, this is the game for you.

"I really like the time period it plays in should I get it?" I would say, try it out. Eu4 has a demo and it will give you a good idea of how the game plays. A lot of events in-game( the randomly triggered event where you have to make a choice) are inspired from historical events ( actually most of them except comet sighted, those things don't happen 10 times in a year). And although historical accuracy is the last thing you should expect from this game, it does give you a good 'What if?' simulator, where you can do almost anything as long as your skill meets the requirements for it to happen.

So should you get it? Well if you kept on reading my probably hard to read review, yea maybe you should. (I hereby apologize for any spelling mistakes I'm an awful typer). If you are scared that you might not understand the game and might quit because you don't understand what you're doing. Just go to the eu4 reddit and ask questions there. There are many good players there that can help you out. Or maybe go to twitch, there are probably some smaller streamers there that are really good at the game and can give you answers to your questions in chat. And if all that fails I'll keep myself available for any players that really need help. You can add me on steam if you want and ask me questions. So don't fear the unknown, step into it and explore.