Europa Universalis IV is the fourth part of the popular grand strategy wargame series by the Swedish company Paradox Interactive. The game was released in 2013, six years after the release of the previous edition of this series of games. The player’s task in this game is to take control of a selected historical state from 1444-1820 and lead it to victory.
How to Download Europa Universalis IV
You can download Europa Universalis IV from the Steam platform. To start the download, click on the Download button at the end of the review. Also available for download are numerous DLCs, such as Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome, or Europa Universalis IV: Cradle of Civilization.
The Gameplay
Europa Universalis IV, as befits any sandbox strategy, has no specific plot. The players create stories at their own discretion. The creators of the game have enabled us to design a completely alternative course of history. You might decide not to allow the partitions of Poland, conquer all of Europe with Japan or crush the American revolution before anyone thinks of it seriously. At the beginning of the game, you have to decide which state you want to lead, choosing from the 260 possible ones. This is an important choice to make because each country is in a different political situation. When selecting a nation, it is also worth taking into account its technological level. It would be very difficult for new players to control the Aztec Empire, which would be far behind as far as technological development is concerned. At the beginning of the game, the player must still specify in which historical period they want to play. The game can begin on November 11, 1444, and will end on December 31, 1820. Of course, you do not have to play that long. Nothing prevents you from taking control over a given state during the French Revolution or the Kościuszko Uprising.
Following the previous parts, the action in Europa Universalis IV takes place on a board divided into provinces, which initially is not entirely visible to the player. In addition, the already known areas, if they are out of sight, will be covered by the fog of war. The player’s interface consists of a minimap, as well as the elements of the interface that allow management of individual aspects of the state.
As mentioned before, your task is to lead the chosen country to victory. How to do it? To win, you must collect victory points, which you receive for special achievements. They can be obtained by winning battles and wars and taking over the territories of the conquered states. However, you do not have to turn your chosen state into a military power. You can choose any development path. The creators of Europa Universalis have provided us with internal management and external state policy and also enabled us to deal with trade, colonization, science, culture, religion and the development of urban infrastructure.
Europa Universalis IV is a game that requires much more skill and understanding of game mechanics than other strategy games. When you compare it to the productions of Firaxis Games (Sid Meier’s Civilization), EU is much more complicated. In both, the player takes control over the chosen state, develops it and strives for victory. However, the game from Paradox Interactive offers much more developed mechanics of control over the country, and also takes place in real time, while Civilization V or Civilization VI is divided into turns.
Europa Universalis was released in 2001. The successor of this strategy game, Europa Universalis II, we not released until 2007. A year later, the players received Europa Universalis: Rome. Europa Universalis IV was released in 2013.
