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Europa Universalis 5 Review
In this episode, we dive into IGN's review of Europa Universalis 5, the latest grand strategy game from Paradox. With unprecedented detail and complexity, the game offers a rich simulation of his...
Europa Universalis 5 Review
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This is IGN.
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Tuning issues aside, this might be the most on-paper impressive historical strategy game
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of all time.
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This is your IGN review of Europa Universalist 5 by Leana Hafer.
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When I load up Europa Universalist 5, paradox is the latest and most ambitious grand strategy
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game, I'm reminded of a news report I once saw about a man who grew up in a tribal village
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seeing an airplane for the first time.
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This can't possibly be real, right?
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This giant piece of metal can't fly through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, attempting
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to conquer the 500-year period from 1337 to 1837 CE, while modeling every single individual
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person in the world.
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Yes, you heard that right.
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At a level of detail that's completely unprecedented, seems unbelievable.
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But it really does all of that.
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And it's generally quite engaging and enjoyable for a genre veteran like me.
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As for whether it can soar, only just.
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There is a lot of turbulence, and I wouldn't stake my life on it getting me to my destination
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without crashing.
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From a systems perspective, EU5 is an unambiguous wonder.
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Paradox keeps pushing the envelope on how much they can simulate in fine grain detail,
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and I could even accuse this absurdly huge historical epic of taking things too far.
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It's certainly unwieldy in its bulk, and I fear especially that this will make it very
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difficult to balance.
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Fixed one small thing and the ripples it sends out through the various interlocking
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mechanisms for economics, geography, demographics, and politics could possibly create 300 more.
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There's a certain hubris to it, if I might be so dramatic, and I've already seen some
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evidence of the problems it can cause.
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But damn, damn, it is incredible to have the entire world depicted in this level of detail
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in a video game.
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For everyone province and its predecessor, Europa Universalis 4, there are roughly seven
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individual locations in Europa Universalis 5.
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And while each space on the map could only have a single monolithic religion and culture
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in EU4, EU5's population mechanics represent the culture, religion, and social class of
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every living human individually.
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Having to think about population creates a rich relationship in each location in my
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country and acts to balance so many things in a naturalistic way, without abstract currencies
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like administration points.
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In EU4, terrain type was a single modifier.
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In EU5, topography, climate, and vegetation are all separate factors that can affect everything
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from agricultural output to combat.
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Getting into the groove of managing a nation can be incredibly engrossing.
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Planning out the site of a new market town, how it's going to connect up to my road network,
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and how I'm going to exploit the local resources in my workshops to turn a huge trade profit
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is better than drugs.
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Control and proximity are brilliant new mechanics that model how you can't necessarily govern
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something just because you painted it your color.
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And combined with a reworked estate system, there's an almost endless number of projects
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to do and challenges to face without ever leaving your borders.
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The geographic granularity here adds so much to nation management and warfare, which has
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evolved with the new terrain modifiers and logistics systems.
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That is when everything is working correctly.
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Major bugs were infrequent and generally not game ruining for me.
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Most of EU5's current problems are in what I'd call tuning.
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The numbers, the balance, and the AI simply aren't quite dialed in yet to provide a
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satisfying or historical feeling experience.
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I saw weird stuff like Bohemia with one port on the Baltic colonizing half of Canada.
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The Holy Roman Empire entirely failed to consolidate.
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There was no clear victor in Turkey, Borgor is everywhere, China is horrifying,
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and weirdest of all, the Europeans colonized most of Australia but never even discovered India
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for some reason. It's hard to say how much of this is typical, but I didn't have thousands
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of hours to play a statistically significant number of campaigns.
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Europa Universalis 5 might be the most on-paper impressive historical strategy game of all time,
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with its depth of simulation, ultra detailed map and demographics, and flavorful depiction of
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the half millennium that brought us from the Middle Ages into the modern world.
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At the moment though, it is definitely hurting for some polish, particularly when it comes to
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general balance, tuning, and AI behavior. It doesn't really feel entirely done yet,
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and that's what you should probably expect if you decide to brave it as an early adopter.
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That being said, I think the foundation is very strong.
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Paradox is focused on the right things to maximize EU 5's long-term potential,
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perhaps at the cost of day one smoothness, as long as these devs can manage to wrangle its
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eminence effectively. The systems are excellent and it's already an ocean deep exciting war
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game and nation manager. With time and care, it could achieve hegemon status in the genre,
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but for now, that dream still lies somewhere over the horizon. Europa Universalis 5's IGN score?
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8 out of 10. Thanks for listening to IGN. My name is Tony Jackson, and for the latest Europa
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Universalis 5 updates, visit us at IGN.com.
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Spoken layer.