Buying Decision - Manual?

[John S]

I bought the original EU and EU2 and had a great deal of fun with them. In both cases, the game was supported by an excellent manual in which 90% of the answers to your questions were buried in there somewhere and that merely left a few peculiar questions that the forums helped me resolve. Great experience, great games.

I have recently spent about eighty hours playing Crusader Kings 2. It has the foundations of a great game. As far as I can tell though, it offers a manual that answers about 5% of your questions. I recognize that buried at various parts of the forum there are answers somewhere to a lot of questions but we all have different preferences. I have been gaming for 53 years (hard to believe) and for me this is not a great way to take on and enjoy a game - I have no problem reading a 60 page or 120 page manual. When you get a 35 page outline, that (I know people disagree on this point) represents to me an incomplete effort on the part of the game developers part.

I have been considering purchasing and taking on EU4. Can you tell me - is there a substantial supporting manual on this iteration of the game?

Also - I realize that this is off topic, but the same question for Victoria 2 - is there a substantial supporting manual or are you essentially required to learn as you go?

Thanks for any help. Much appreciated.

 

[kingofnoobs]

There's a PDF version of the manual which is really helpful and handy(For me at least).

PS: Is it against the rules to post a link to the game manual?

 

[Jaol]

The manual's pretty decent. But you'll probably find it more like CK2 than EU2--I've also played them both, the current generation games are just much more complex than EU2 that everything really can't fit in the manual.

Personally, I use the EU4 wiki as my manual. It gives more detail with breakdowns of how exactly the mechanics work. If you're familiar with how Clausewitz games work (i.e. you know about triggers, MTTH, etc.), I think you'll find it does a really good job of explaining how the game works.

Having come from EU2->EU3->EU4, I didn't find the game hard to understand at all. With the tutorials, manual, and wiki, it's easy to get a good enough grasp on the game to be able to play it just fine, and then you can learn about more niche mechanics like the HRE or the reformation as you go.