Europa Universalis 5 review: A beautiful storm of possibility and overstimulation

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As someone who likes to jump into games without being a total expert, I’ve found that getting the difficulty just right is super important – otherwise, it’s either a walk in the park or you’re constantly crashing! Europa Universalis 5 is kind of the same way. It’s not a racing game, of course (though the rush to explore the New World feels like a race!), but finding the right settings to have fun without getting totally overwhelmed is key.

Learning to play Paradox Tinto’s intricate strategy game is tough without help, but mastering it is very rewarding. It’s a bit like the old saying about leadership – it requires constant, careful control. Europa Universalis 5 asks you to manage many different aspects of your empire, and each system is so detailed it could be a game on its own. Juggling everything at once is the real challenge.

While the previous version made complex ideas like population and trade easier to understand, EU5 fully embraced their intricacies. It created a detailed system of interconnected mechanics that attempts to simulate realistic economic and political situations, giving players a lot of control – though not always. Sometimes, you’ll feel like you’re just along for the ride, reacting to events like everyone else.

In the game, your population is the most important resource. I use it to measure my progress. You need people to do everything – farming, mining, building, spreading religion, and defending against attacks. But people have different roles based on their social class; for example, farmers can’t create books – that’s the job of religious scholars. The game tracks every single person, no matter their background. These groups, called ‘pops,’ have their own goals and manage their own finances. They build things, trade goods, and push for political power, making each country feel dynamic and alive.

Starting a Paradox game can be challenging. Players often expect a straightforward power fantasy where they have complete control, treating their nation like a personal playground. However, the game throws obstacles your way, primarily through powerful interest groups – the estates – who actively oppose you. It’s important to remember these groups aren’t united; they’re also competing against each other for influence.

As a fan of this game, I’ve found that at the beginning, the nobles always seem to have all the power. But it’s really cool that you can actually shift that balance over time – it’s not something that happens overnight! I’ve had success by subtly playing the different estates against each other. I usually start by giving the burghers a little boost – maybe an extra privilege or tweaking some laws to lessen the aristocracy’s influence. It’s a slow process, but you can gradually weaken the nobles’ grip on power, creating an opening for yourself or letting the burghers step up. Once they’re vulnerable, you can take away their perks to show who’s in charge, but you have to be careful! Messing with things too much can really hurt your country’s stability, leading to rebellions or economic problems. If your estates are already unhappy, lowering their taxes is a good way to keep things calm. Losing control over them also means you’ll get less money from your lands, so it’s a balancing act!

Loans in EU5 often don’t provide much help when you’re facing financial trouble because the amounts are usually too small. This forces you to borrow more, and the high interest rates quickly become unsustainable, leading to a downward spiral. While going bankrupt isn’t the end of the game, it significantly slows your progress and can even lead to internal unrest or a foreign power taking advantage of your weakness.

Political maneuvering often relies on indirect approaches. Similarly, succeeding in the game EU5 requires careful, forward-thinking strategy in all aspects of gameplay.

As a huge fan of this game, I’ve learned a few things the hard way! Take fishing villages, for example. If I’m playing as Japan, I’ve got plenty of food already, so building more villages just to get food isn’t worth it. But they do create sailors, and you always need those to build ships and send out explorers. The game’s clever enough to not waste people on things that lose money, but you only get those sailors if the village is actually working. So, you can’t just build it and forget it! What I’ve started doing is subsidizing them – basically, I pay to keep them running, even if they’re losing money, so I can get a steady supply of sailors. It’s not the most efficient thing, but hey, I’m running a country, not a business, and it’s up to me to decide what’s strategically important!

I invested heavily in quickly colonizing Hokkaido for a practical reason: Japan starts the game with a serious shortage of essential grains needed to feed its population. Hokkaido, however, has several regions that produce these grains in abundance. You can either force your people to live with less, spend a lot of money importing it, or secure a reliable source for yourself. Once Hokkaido’s grain production began, prices dropped, allowing peasants to be more productive and earn more money. This boosted the overall economy and, importantly, increased the peasants’ influence compared to the samurai class, which helped me achieve my long-term goal of weakening their power. While a little bit of expanding my territory was a nice bonus, the economic benefits were the primary driver.

During the chaotic Red Turban Rebellions in China, demand for weapons and military supplies skyrocketed in my region. I quickly invested in the arms industry, which proved both strategically valuable and highly profitable. Even local merchants joined in, exporting weapons independently. War can be incredibly good for business – as long as it’s happening far away and others are fighting it. However, if your own citizens are suffering and dying from war, famine, or disease, your economy will quickly collapse.

The collapse of China also had significant economic consequences. As provinces were destroyed and pillaged, certain goods became scarce and expensive. With the country fractured by internal conflict, merchants were forced to find new supply routes, and I began to see opportunities for profit as my traders started importing and reselling spices.

Just like in other city-building games, building structures and supporting an army costs resources, which affects prices. I realized why my ships weren’t being repaired – a severe shortage of alcohol! Apparently, sailors need it to do their jobs. It just goes to show how important logistics are!

These situations demonstrate how the economies and governments of the major European countries – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom – are closely linked and influence each other. Add cultural and religious factors, and the possibilities become even more complex and interesting.

You have the option to handle everything in the game yourself, or use the automation system in EU5 to help. It’s a powerful feature – you can even let it play the game for you if you just want to observe. However, the best part is that it lets you delegate tasks, just like a real leader. For example, I used automation to handle all the trading mentioned earlier. You can also prevent the AI from interfering with specific tasks, like ensuring a consistent supply of grain. Plus, you can split your trade capacity between automated and manual control, giving you a great way to manage everything.

EU5 is a complicated program that can be frustratingly difficult, but also incredibly rewarding. It offers a lot of tools to help you learn and customize the experience, similar to how racing simulators let you adjust settings to fit your preferences. The key is to experiment with different options and figure out what you want to achieve within the game.

The game, like other Paradox titles, uses a top-screen bar to highlight key information and help you plan your strategy, including a rundown of the current situation when you start a game. This is particularly useful in EU5, which is more of a free-form sandbox experience than its predecessor, EU4. Unlike EU4, there aren’t specific missions guiding each country, which can sometimes feel directionless and make it seem like you’re just letting history unfold without much control.

I’m torn about how Crusader Kings III handles missions now that they’ve replaced the old ‘Tinto’ system. While these new political situations and interactions with international organizations do offer some guidance – for instance, Japan’s dual imperial courts create unique religious dynamics – the game fails to clearly explain how to resolve them. As the shogun, I’m blocked from taking necessary actions, and there’s no way to change my role or eliminate the rival claimants. Declaring war on them is possible, but pointless, as they lack armies or land, leading to automatic peace treaties. To make matters worse, a major civil war (the Sengoku Jidai) inevitably erupts after a century, regardless of how well you govern, and you’ll likely lose a significant portion of your territory to smaller factions that you then have to reconquer. It feels like a goal to work towards, but it’s frustrating to have so much progress undone without any real agency or control.

This is quite a change from earlier games where you felt completely in control. To really enjoy Europa Universalis V, you’ll need to be flexible and accept that you won’t always be able to dictate everything that happens.

Natural disasters are a good example of where the game falls short. If your military isn’t positioned well when an earthquake hits, it can be devastating. It’s frustrating that the game doesn’t tell you which buildings were damaged, which would be a helpful feature. This is one of several minor issues with the user interface and how information is presented. Generally, the game does a good job of giving you the information you need, and it’s customizable, too. The detailed tooltips are a real help, and you can click on keywords to access a more extensive in-game encyclopedia. This works well for understanding the main game mechanics, but it’s not enough when it comes to the historical scenarios.

I enjoy having long-term goals to work towards in the game. However, I often struggle to understand how to achieve them. While I appreciate the detailed and unique events for different historical periods like the Hundred Years War or Sengoku Jidai, it’s usually unclear what actions I need to take. The current system, which relies on complex requirements, isn’t helpful – I really miss the clear, step-by-step instructions of the old mission trees.

I haven’t experienced any crashes or stability problems myself, though I know others have. On my powerful computer (with an i9-14900KF processor, RTX 4080 Super graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and the game installed on an SSD), the game ran very smoothly and loaded quickly, which is what I expected. Of course, there are bugs and balance problems – it wouldn’t be a Paradox strategy game without tough challenges and the occasional unexpected setback! It’s the most complex strategy game I’ve ever played, so I don’t think it will ever be completely perfect, and that’s okay.

I’m still really invested in EU5, even though it can be frustrating when things don’t go as planned – you can’t control everything! I love how complex, detailed, and historically rich the game is. Surprisingly, I found more enjoyment in improving Japan’s grain production than in military conquest. There’s something captivating about making small adjustments and watching the consequences unfold across nations, and EU5 excels at creating these long-lasting effects.

The game’s motto, “Be ambitious,” isn’t just for show. It’s a genuine invitation to players. To truly enjoy the game, you’ll need to be motivated, eager to learn, and willing to set your own objectives.

Europa Universalis 5 feels like the perfect result of Paradox’s years of experience, and truly deserves the title of ‘grand strategy game’.

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2025-10-31 20:19