I'm starting to appreciate EU4's simplicity

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Kryndude

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Mar 3, 2015
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EU4 is relatively simple compared to other strategy games. If you were to play optimally, every country feels pretty much the same past early game: same idea groups, same war strategy and tactics, same resource management, etc. Before, I considered this a downside, but now I realize it's what makes me come back to this game every now and then. Other games that require much more complex problem solving aren't that attractive to me anymore now that I've become less passionate about gaming. EU4, however, lets you relax and role-play alternate history without having to put in too much effort... I think I'm getting old lol
 
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What kind of strategy games are you playing where countrys all play more differently then the ones in EU4 and what the hell do you mean with "same idea goups"? What kind of person takes the same idea groups on every single nation with the exception of quantity, humanist/religious and diplomatic ideas.
 
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I am yet to see a strategy game more complex than pdx games, maybe there are spme actual simulations out there who are.

Pretty sure you are confusing barrier of entry with complexity and still that one is really steep. If you plax everything the same that just means that you are at a basic level of the game (no judgement intended) but your experience up to this point makes it seem simple to you. I, for example, consider myself quite good at eu4 but not great. It took thousands of hours to get to this point but i still feel that this is easier for me than civ6. Now eu4 is obviously much more complex than civ6 so why is that? It is because i played eu4 for 4k hours and run alot of stuff on autopilot while i played less than 5 hours of civ6, which completely oberwhelmes me at this point (even though i spent thousands lf hours on installment 3, 4 and 5 of that franchise).

Tl;dr it feels easy cause you have at least a basic idea on what to do.
 
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Civ6 suffers from a really bad AI. EU4 AI is Deep Blue compared to Civ6 one.
I actually agree that EU4 is quite simple at its core; it's glorified Risk. Newbies can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of modifiers and some obscured mechanics, but I don't see it in its nature as more complex than Civs.
 
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EU4 is relatively simple compared to other strategy games. If you were to play optimally, every country feels pretty much the same past early game: same idea groups, same war strategy and tactics, same resource management, etc. Before, I considered this a downside, but now I realize it's what makes me come back to this game every now and then. Other games that require much more complex problem solving aren't that attractive to me anymore now that I've become less passionate about gaming. EU4, however, lets you relax and role-play alternate history without having to put in too much effort... I think I'm getting old lol
In broad terms I agree, but what are the "other strategy games" in your comparison? I can list Dominions, Vic 2, maybe Stellaris, maybe FoGE and I can't think of anything else...
 
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Minesweeper on windows 98. I still dont understand how it works.

The complexity of Windows Purple Place games was too much for me... All these cake combinations :(
 
Civ6 suffers from a really bad AI. EU4 AI is Deep Blue compared to Civ6 one.
I actually agree that EU4 is quite simple at its core; it's glorified Risk. Newbies can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of modifiers and some obscured mechanics, but I don't see it in its nature as more complex than Civs.

I started enjoying EU4 a lot more once I started viewing it as glorified Risk. I've been playing a lot of Civ6 lately and some civs there feel more unique than nations in EU4 do - like Mali relying on buying things with gold, Hungary relying on city state units, etc.
EU4 kinda has the following:
1) Different government types that affect how you'll play your nation. Standard monarchy vs horde, for example, will play very different. Republics don't play very unique though.
2) Different religion mechanics that affect how you'll play your nation. Personal Unions for Christians, harmonizing other religions for confucians. Kharma for buddists and mysticism vs. legalism for muslims don't actually affect anything or feel interesting or unique. Honestly, I feel like religions should feel a lot more different than they do, by adding mechanics like Personal unions, not just modifiers.
3) Different regions (playing in east asia vs. europe vs. native american, etc) that feel different. It does feel very different playing in eastern Asia and having to deal with Ming than it does in Europe and having to deal with the million minor nations and the HRE and the nearby Ottomans. But as OP said, this particular difference falls away past mid-game when you're the biggest fish around.
4) The only other difference is if you play colonizer or not.


So there are a lot of differences, but some of them don't really matter so much, or become irrelevant eventually. (not hating on EU4, still love playing it. Just pointing out it could be even better)
 
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I'd agree that the core is quite straightforward - getting there can be painful, however (RNG, AI choices, etc.). You want high stab + legitimacy or republican whatsit - you want loads of infantry and guns, high mil tech, and good trade steering. You want quantity / quality / humanist ideas, and the ivory coast / carrib trade nodes. Rinse and repeat, Rule Britollanranceussiazantium.

What EU4 does allow, that for me a lot of games don't, is optional engagement with most of the mechanics themselves - You don't have to engage with the states system, holy orders, marines, colonialism, trade companies, the religions beyond stability, Polish elections, the HRE and so on - you can chose to, and for the most part in whatever combination suits you.

That depth of options gives it endless replay-ability for me, and I've not really played outside of Europe that much.
 
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In broad terms I agree, but what are the "other strategy games" in your comparison? I can list Dominions, Vic 2, maybe Stellaris, maybe FoGE and I can't think of anything else...

It truly depends what he means by strategy and by complexity, doesn't it? Games like Age of Empires and Total War are also strategy.

I'm always happy when people mention Dominions :)
 
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EU4 has lots of buttons to click but in the end they all boil down to map painting. It's hard to explain, but all the different options you get don't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. You eventually want core cost reduction, national unrest, that kind of stuff regardless of which country you play. Games like Civ 6 or Total War Warhammer presents completely different gaming experience depending on which victory type you aim for or which faction you play. Other games like Anno 1800, Factorio, etc requires you to solve much more complex problems than EU4. It is a good thing for a strategy game as long as you're up for the task. Everything I've said are 100% subjective, and I'm not necessarily trying to persuade you if you have different opinions. I'm just saying that to me, EU4 is a relaxing game that I can play while watching a Youtube video.
 
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EU4 has lots of buttons to click but in the end they all boil down to map painting. It's hard to explain, but all the different options you get don't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. You eventually want core cost reduction, national unrest, that kind of stuff regardless of which country you play.
That is like saying minecraft always boils down to digging straight down for diamonds. The last PDX survey showed that at least this forum is more into roleplay than map painting. For me personally my mughals wc, basically the easiest wc possible, was the least fun i ever had in a finished campaign, while my most fun game was a frisia one where i never held more than 30 provinces directly.

Other games like Anno 1800, Factorio, etc requires you to solve much more complex problems than EU4

As an avid Anno fan (Anno 1602 was my first video game ever), i have to disagree. EU4 is much more complex although i see where you are coming from. You are confusing complexity with difficulty. The Anno series is much harder imo due to the wares being physical (except for the installment that shall not be named), making timing a very crucial factor. At it's core Anno is always just balancing production, population and logistics and it offers you way less choices than eu4 does. The combat system in eu4 alone, which isn't exactly great, is more complex than anything the Anno series has ever offered. That doesnt make it harder or better. One could even argue that in many parts less complexity is better.
 
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You are confusing complexity with difficulty.
You could be right. Maybe I feel that EU4 is simple due to how much time I've spent playing it. Once you get all the priorities sorted you no longer have to think much, whereas Anno games make you go through more arduous process of setting things up optimally, even when you know what you're supposed to do.
 
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You could be right. Maybe I feel that EU4 is simple due to how much time I've spent playing it. Once you get all the priorities sorted you no longer have to think much, whereas Anno games make you go through more arduous process of setting things up optimally, even when you know what you're supposed to do.

EU4 is hard to play optimally. I've spent so much time playing EU4 that I think I do everything right, I play on autopilot, but then in hindsight I might have been playing at 49 power projection the last 50 years, which could easily have been fixed by sending a scornful insult. That's a small error, but it cost me 1800 monarch power.

EU4 is the kind of game where at all points it's probably possible to do some adjustments, some tweaks that make it more optimal. Have you turned off your edicts after the war? Drilling your troops again or lowered maintenance? There are many things that you can optimise at all times.

These things are super simple. It doesn't make the game complex. But playing EU4 optimally is by no means a simple task.

Edit: fixed some typos
 
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EU4 has lots of buttons to click but in the end they all boil down to map painting. It's hard to explain, but all the different options you get don't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. You eventually want core cost reduction, national unrest, that kind of stuff regardless of which country you play. Games like Civ 6 or Total War Warhammer presents completely different gaming experience depending on which victory type you aim for or which faction you play. Other games like Anno 1800, Factorio, etc requires you to solve much more complex problems than EU4. It is a good thing for a strategy game as long as you're up for the task. Everything I've said are 100% subjective, and I'm not necessarily trying to persuade you if you have different opinions. I'm just saying that to me, EU4 is a relaxing game that I can play while watching a Youtube video.

Unfortunately or fortunately I guess EU4 is a make your own victory type of game. It's the way almost all of pdox's games are. You can go for Cultural victories a la Basque on Glory, or science like for instance Poland into Space. Both are much more different experiences to me than the difference between playing as Genghis Khan or Montezuma in CIV6.

I like to believe pdox has been getting more unique achievements in recent times but honestly the spread of achievements has remained the same and i wish more achievements were more science/cultural/economic related.

What I have seen them improve is the mission trees before they were all conquer this or that except for the generic mission tree. I'm excited that they are putting a heavier emphasis on those intangible things in the game like culture economic and science.

Total War is all the same mechanically. It has beautiful art and the best RPG mechanics/stories for a grand strategy game. But if you take out the stories and the art the game really just comes down to build money making buildings, don't fight armies that are more expensive than yours, and charge quick units into the rear of weak units while avoiding the same thing happening to you.
 
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EU4 has lots of buttons to click but in the end they all boil down to map painting. It's hard to explain, but all the different options you get don't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. You eventually want core cost reduction, national unrest, that kind of stuff regardless of which country you play. Games like Civ 6 or Total War Warhammer presents completely different gaming experience depending on which victory type you aim for or which faction you play. Other games like Anno 1800, Factorio, etc requires you to solve much more complex problems than EU4. It is a good thing for a strategy game as long as you're up for the task. Everything I've said are 100% subjective, and I'm not necessarily trying to persuade you if you have different opinions. I'm just saying that to me, EU4 is a relaxing game that I can play while watching a Youtube video.
civ 6 having interesting decisions? really?
 
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