Sadly, few of the other religions seem to have as much interesting gameplay effect as the others, but this seems like fertile ground for future DLC. Religion adds a wrinkle to sets of nations, with Catholics competing for control of the Papacy, and Muslims having a slider that moves them between a secular, scientific nation and a religious, warlike nation. The new systems all manage to add some depth as well. Compared to previous games in the series, it manages to make everything far clearer, without sacrificing any of the game’s depth. When you want to make an alliance, you can see the exact factors that make other nations likely to accept or reject, weighted with numbers. When a rebellion is brewing in one of your provinces, you can click on the alert, check for rebel groups, then click ‘Handle It’ to see how you can keep the rebels in their place. As opposed to older Paradox games, where problems were all solvable, but the solutions might be obfuscated, now there’s an emphasis on making it so that all the information you need is at your fingertips. What’s better, all of this is pretty clear.

Going to war might prevent you from expanding via colonization, while making your realm more stable will slow down the pace at which you advance your government. These are the major bottleneck and pacing mechanism. The quality of your leader determines how many points you get towards national actions, ranging from advancing your technologies to specializing your nation with ideas, as well as dealing with internal issues. The ruler, though, is the core of the game.

Instead, it’s just up to you to guide your nation to whatever heights you shoot for. It’s Paradox grand strategy, so there’s no real victory condition, even if the game keeps score. You step into the shoes of a leader of a renaissance nation, from Austria to Bhutan. From warfare to internal affairs, diplomacy to technology, every part of Europa Universalis III has been improved in the new version, the only hiccups coming where revised systems scrape against old expectations.

The latest in their series of renaissance grand strategy games, Europa Universalis IV takes bold leaps forward in making the game far, far more accessible without sacrificing its complexity and depth. Paradox has been on a steady upswing for the last few years, and Europa Universalis IV continues that trend.

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