Something different this week! The folks at Paradox Development Studios were nice enough to give me a review copy of the upcoming Europa Universalis V<\/em> (releasing Nov. 4) ahead of release so that I could share some thoughts! For the unfamiliar, Europa Universalis<\/em> is a series of strategy games covering the early modern period (traditionally 1444 to 1836, but now 1337 to 1836). While the series title implies a European focus, these games have become over time increasingly global and really represent an effort as global<\/em> historical strategy. So this is a game where you play as a state (or state-like entity) from the end of the Middle Ages through the Age of Exploration through the rest of the early modern period to the period of the American and French revolutions, though obviously as your game develops, those revolutions may or may not happen as historically they did.<\/p>\n First, I should note that if you have not read it, I did an extended series on this game\u2019s predecessor (I<\/a>, II<\/a>, III<\/a>, IV<\/a>) as part of my Teaching Paradox<\/em> series \u2013 indeed, as the very first<\/em> of the Teaching Paradox<\/em> posts. You don\u2019t need to read that series to understand this post, but I will be referring back to it.<\/p>\n Now while I have had EU5<\/em> for a couple of weeks at this point, due to teaching and research demands and such, I have only been able to give it a limited amount of time \u2013 about 30 hours \u2013 so I\u2019m going to call this post a \u2018first impression\u2019 rather than a \u2018review\u2019 or \u2018analysis.\u2019 It should, of course, tell you something about this game that \u201cabout 30 hours\u201d is a \u201climited amount of time.\u201d In particular, I play these games relatively slowly (with a lot of automation turned off so I can make granular decisions), so those hours have only gotten me in one run to about 1450 (more on that below) which is hardly all of the game \u2013 hell, it is barely past the start date<\/em> of EUIV<\/em>. So what I want to do here is first present very briefly my answer to \u201cis it good?<\/strong>\u201d (yes) because if I don\u2019t, I will be asked about it endlessly, and then get into the real meat of the question which is how the historical assumptions of Europa Universalis V<\/em> differ from those of its predecessors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I did receive a review copy of the game and obviously I have interacted with the folks at Paradox before and will continue to try to bully them into making Imperator II<\/em>.<\/p>\n Yes.<\/p>\n Now, I should do some table-setting here: I am the kind of player who, as you will recall, really enjoyed<\/em> Victoria III<\/em> on launch. That title was divisive, in part because of a heavy emphasis on relatively indirect systems (building factories changes your demographics which changes your interest groups which changes your politics, that sort of thing) and because it de-emphasized the \u2018war-game\u2019 aspect these games often have. So please understand that in the battle between \u2018more spreadsheets\u2019 and \u2018less spreadsheet\u2019 when it comes to Paradox games, I am firmly in the \u2018more spreadsheets\u2019 camp. With that said then, let me qualify my previous \u2018yes\u2019 with:<\/p>\n Europa Universalis<\/em> V<\/em> is likely to be divisive: it is much more systems driven<\/strong>, much less \u2018gamey\u2019 in its design<\/strong>, much more granular<\/strong> (and thus slower) and substantially more complex<\/em><\/strong>. I also imagine that, once the game hits the general public, players will find ways to break those more complex systemic interactions in amusing ways \u2013 I imagine there will be a lot of balance patches and tweaks. But I think it needs to be stressed that this is not EU4.5<\/strong>. One of the things I really like about Paradox is that they do not tread water in design from one iteration to the next: HoI4<\/em> takes some big risks compared to HoI3<\/em>, VickyIII<\/em> is quite a jump from VickyII<\/em> and so on (Crusader Kings<\/em> has experienced perhaps the least of this from II<\/em> to III<\/em>, but the gap between CKII<\/em> (2012) and CKIII<\/em> (2022) is still a lot bigger, design wise, in my view, than, say the gap between Total War: Rome II<\/em> (2013) and Total War: Pharaoh: Dynasties: Colon<\/em> (:2024)). <\/p>\n The word I am going to keep using for this \u201clots of complex interacting systems summarized by charts of charts with charts and charts\u201d is \u2018crunchy.\u2019 It isn\u2019t soft and smooth, it fights you a little bit, but there\u2019s a lot of texture and complexity there.<\/p>\n The design is relentlessly crunchier<\/strong>: monarch points (\u201cmana\u201d) are gone, but this isn\u2019t a full switch back to EUIII<\/em>\u2018s \u2018gold does everything\u2019 system. Instead, monarch points have been replaced by a bunch<\/em> of interacting systems that blend Imperator<\/em> and VickyIII<\/em>\u2018s approach to pops and buildings. Estates, an add-on mechanic in EU4<\/em> are now central: buildings and pops contribute to income but also estate power which shapes politics and cultural values. Culture-Value Sliders are back<\/strong> (something I missed from EUIII<\/em>) but they now move gradually rather than in clear increments and are shaped by policies and privileges. In short, abstract game mechanics have been mostly replaced by interwoven systems which the player influences only slowly and often indirectly<\/strong>: if you build a lot of burgher buildings (like, say, fabric guilds in your towns) you will slowly empower your burghers and as they become more powerful keeping them happy will demand shifting your government in ways they want (but their increased power will enable you to do that). In a process that might take, you know, a century or two<\/em> to happen, if not longer.<\/p>\n The game is also unapologetic about its complexity<\/strong> and frankly suffers a little from a UI that is clearly straining to do what it needs to<\/strong>. Basically all of the major country screens (\u2018diplomacy, economy\u2019 that stuff) have sub-screens (usually 2-3), some of which open sub-sub-screens. Every \u2018location\u2019 \u2013 the \u2018sub-province\u2019 territorial unit \u2013 has its own buildings and economy and pops which all have their own screens. I never found it too hard to find what I was looking for, but if you are the kind of player who cordially hates that sort of thing and likes how minimal it is in CKII <\/em>and III<\/em>, well it is maximal <\/strong><\/em>here. I imagine that we\u2019ll see over the course of this game\u2019s post-release development, some stream-lining of UI and a few more tooltips (some of the economy tooltips take a minute before you understand what all of the icons mean<\/em>), but unless they streamline the systems \u2013 and please<\/em> do not streamline away the systems \u2013 this is always going to be a crunchy, complex game.<\/p>\n The developers are clearly aware of that because they\u2019ve added the ability to automate most of these systems<\/strong>. If you don\u2019t want<\/em> to individually set trade priorities in every trading center, you can automate them. If you don\u2019t want<\/em> to individually plan out your economic buildings, you can automate that too. If you don\u2019t want<\/em> to set estate-by-estate tax rates to crush the wealth of your aristocracy so that they can\u2019t stop you when you tear away their feudal privileges, you can set a \u2018keep them happy\u2019 automation on that as well. The clear intent here is to let players, especially of large territorial empires, focus their attention as they like<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t say how well these automation systems worked because I did my run as the County of Holland<\/strong>, which can\u2019t really afford to automate its economy, because economy is all it has. I fiddled a bit with trade automation and found it worked well enough prioritizing profit in my market, although I did end up reserving a chunk of trade capacity (you can do that!) so I could make sure specific industries got the raw materials they needed (the trade AI seems, reasonably enough, to focus on the profit of the trade<\/em> but can\u2019t consider the downstream economic effects of, say, a purchase of wool that makes a small profit, but the wool then goes through two production buildings to come out as dyed fabric where the big profit is in production<\/em>. But again, easy enough, as the player, to notice the warning up at the top of the screen telling you your market is short on wool and to just reserve some trade capacity to buy wool). To judge by the performance of AI countries, the automation seems to work OK, but I imagine players will find exciting ways to break it shortly.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s the \u2018review\u2019 part: this is a much<\/em> more systems driven approach<\/strong>, which blends some of the best ideas from Victoria III<\/em>, Imperator<\/em>, and EUIII<\/em> and EUIV<\/em> and I think it works really well<\/strong>. I suspect it will turn off players who prefer less systems-driven, less-crunchy experiences, but the automation may soften that blow. There are some rough edges, some systems that clearly need balancing and refinement and such, as you\u2019d expect for a game this complex at launch. But it works pretty well, I had no stability issues, it ran well for me (shocking, given its complexity) and for the folks who want a crunchier, systems-driven approach, this will be your jam<\/strong>. And France is a monster which must be destroyed.<\/p>\n I suppose if we must do number-scores, we ought to do them in true ACOUP<\/em> fashion, so I give EUV<\/em> a rating of Part Vc out of a \u2018three part\u2019 series.<\/p>\n On to the history part.<\/p>\n Perhaps the defining conclusion in my series on EU4<\/em> was that it was, fundamentally, a game about states<\/strong>. The state was the primary actor<\/strong> and frankly non-state actors \u2013 people, estates, non-state peoples, companies and so on \u2013 didn\u2019t figure in very much. This was a reasonable frame for a game about the early modern period to take, but it was a frame and like any frame, some things must be left out.<\/p>\n Europa Universalis V<\/em><\/strong> is a game about nations<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 that\u2019s the closest \u2018single word\u2019 I can get to in English. It\u2019s better to say Europa Universalis V <\/em>is a game about the place where people<\/em> and polity<\/em> meet<\/strong>. And indeed, the game actually specifies this: one of my repeated complaints with Paradox games not named Crusader Kings<\/em> is that there\u2019s often a lack of clarity as to exactly what<\/em> the player is playing as: the ruler? the state? the people?<\/p>\n EUV<\/em> specifies, at the beginning of the tutorial: you play as the \u201cspirit of the nation.\u201d Again, nation<\/em> <\/a>is an awkward word, but there\u2019s none better. I admit, when I saw that, I laughed out loud because it was such a direct response<\/em> \u2013 intended or not \u2013 to one of my critiques (particularly of Imperator<\/a><\/em>, which shares its director, Johan Andersson with EUV<\/em>). But the game sincerely means it: you are not the state, but the point at which the state and its people meet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This is a game about the conjunction of people<\/em> and polity<\/em><\/strong>, regardless of if those people make up a \u2018nation\u2019 or even a \u2018state.\u2019 It thus embraces more kinds of polities than EUIII <\/em>or IV <\/em>did: non-territorial companies, nomadic polities and so on. But it also embraces more about polities<\/em> than they did: this is not just<\/em> a game about states but also a game about people<\/em><\/strong>. \u2018History from above\u2019 is not gone \u2013 the state (or polity) \u2013 is a major mover and shaper of culture and events and Big Men can do Big Things in this game, but EUV<\/em> introduces \u2018history from below\u2019 in dramatic fashion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I think this is clearest in how it handles estates<\/strong>. First, a bit of background in my experience: I was playing as the County of Holland<\/strong>, with the aim of forming the Netherlands (to include all of the Low Countries) and eventually becoming a Republic. But Holland doesn\u2019t start out as a plutocratic republic because this game starts in 1336<\/em>: it starts out as a \u2018feudal\u2019 aristocratic imperial prince like dozens of others, albeit with a bit more \u2018town\u2019 orientation. But to hit the \u2018become a republic\u2019 button, you need to crank the \u2018plutocracy\u2019 value really high and to do that, you need a bunch of privileges and reforms that prioritize your burghers (the rich townsfolk) over your aristocracy and to do that<\/em> you need to break the power of the aristocracy.<\/p>\n And doing that<\/em> is a mix of bottom-up and top-down systems and what is really neat and new is that the aristocrats will try to fight you<\/em>. The economy of your country is shaped by buildings. You build most of the buildings, but your estates build them too<\/em> and not all of the buildings they build are helpful: most of the estates (aristocracy, clergy, burghers, everyone else) have a building which does basically nothing but increase their political power. Meanwhile, their chosen economic buildings add to your tax revenue, but also add to the estate\u2019s revenue, and thus their power \u2013 power that in turn makes it more and more costly to tear away their privileges or preferred policies. And those privileges and policies in turn lock in the \u2018values\u2019 sliders (which now change gradually rather than in increments) so as long as you have a bunch of old-style late-medieval privileges and policies, you are never cranking the sliders from \u2018decentralized\u2019 to \u2018centralized\u2019 or from \u2018aristocratic\u2019 to \u2018plutocratic.\u2019<\/p>\n So you have to tear away those privileges, which costs a scaling amount of stability based on how powerful the estate that has them is. And of course ripping away the privilege of a powerful estate is going to both infuriate them (they each have an independent approval meter) and<\/em> tank your stability (which lowers the approval of every estate) which is very likely to trigger some exciting<\/em> unrest. What I like is that those privileges are not just \u201cthe aristocracy gets more powerful and the state gets nothing\u201d \u2013 they almost invariably represent a tradeoff. The aristocracy gets more powerful but<\/em> their levies are larger (because they\u2019re expected to do vassal service) or the clergy gets more powerful but<\/em> you get a bump to literacy (because they\u2019re running your schools) and so on.<\/p>\n It creates a system where you can see why a country might become \u2018trapped\u2019 in a stable but stagnant situation<\/strong>, because change means losing the advantages of stability and the upsides of those tradeoffs immediately<\/em>, but realizing the benefits of reform only gradually.<\/p>\n This is further emphasized with the control<\/strong> mechanic. Every \u2018location\u2019 has a control<\/strong> rating, which scales the manpower, tax revenue and other goodies you can get from it, representing how deeply that location is actually penetrated by your government. Control scales with travel distance from the capital<\/strong> (by sea or land), which in part incentivizes vassal states (better a vassal with good control paying tribute than you with zero control). But it also creates this quite granular feel of how state control radiates<\/em> from the capital and from cities and towns<\/strong>, so while states have formal, rigid borders, you can absolutely have hinterlands in which state power barely exist (replacing the very binary core\/not-core distinction from EUIV<\/em>).<\/p>\n Beneath those systems people matter a lot more<\/strong> and you engage with them more directly. Buildings have to be staffed to work, which means they need pops of the correct social status to run them. If there\u2019s demand, pops can promote between social statuses (somewhat slowly) to fill workplaces, so a modernizing country is going to be draining out its peasantry to fill growing towns, which in turn is going to change social, cultural and political balances. Warfare is also more closely tied to pops<\/strong>: levies are drawn from your pops now (professional soldiers come from the manpower pool, now generated by buildings which must be staffed) based on their type: burghers show up as heavy infantry, aristocrats as cavalry, peasants as peasant levies.<\/p>\n The new early start date (1337) gives the game a chance to just hammer<\/em> you out of the door with the importance of population in its new systems because just about as you\u2019ve got your economy humming the way you want, the Black Death comes along and kills a ton<\/em> of your pops, causing absolute havoc<\/em> in your economy, a potent, forceful reminder that your economy is run by people<\/em> and those people fundamentally matter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Pops in turn have needs (they want certain goods) and get angry if they don\u2019t have those goods and that frustration links back into the estate system and influences control which in turn impacts how much you can gain in resources from a given place. Pop satisfaction<\/strong>, based on estate opinion and if they are getting needs feeds not just into unrest but also into control<\/strong>, so it is important not to just keep your pops alive<\/em>, but increasingly as the game goes on to keep them happy<\/em>.<\/p>\n Pops matter so much, one of the \u2018country types\u2019 is a society of pops<\/em><\/strong>: a polity that is a people<\/em> without a defined territory, used for a lot of non-state peoples. I was initially really concerned when I loaded up the map and saw that much of the Americas was \u2019empty,\u2019 but then realized, looking closer: no, it is nearly entirely filled by societies of pops<\/em>, with whom you can still do diplomacy, declare war and so on. They\u2019re just non-state polities that don\u2019t have hard defined territories (but do exist in places<\/em> \u2013 there\u2019s a mapmode to see where they are). There are also \u2018countries\u2019 which are businesses with a collection of buildings. I don\u2019t think<\/em> either of these are playable (yet?) \u2013 I couldn\u2019t seem to select them to play as \u2013 but even just interacting with them creates a really interesting texture to the game and a reminder that there are historical actors here that are not states<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One of the things I appreciate about Paradox\u2019s development style is that they take risks: while there is certainly a Paradox \u2018house style,\u2019 the numbered sequels in their core lineup always take big swings at trying something new. Sometimes it works great (Crusader Kings II <\/em>and III<\/em>), sometimes it needs a bit of refinement to find itself (Victoria III<\/em>) and sometimes it doesn\u2019t ever quite come together (Imperator<\/em>, Sengoku<\/em>). But each time they are pushing, trying something new and embracing new viewpoints on what history can be<\/em><\/strong> in the process.<\/p>\n And I think Europa Universalis V<\/em> is a substantial step in that direction. It is still EU<\/em> \u2013 a bit more state-centered than CK<\/em> or Vicky<\/em> \u2013 but the historical vision here encompasses a lot more. It\u2019s also clear that EUV<\/em> was built from the ground up to really be a global<\/em> grand strategy game. It\u2019s not perfect<\/em> at that (the institution system returns, with a better design but maybe not a perfect one), but now that not only non-European states, but non-European non-states<\/em> are actors in the game with their own agendas and interactions, it\u2019s made pretty great strides.<\/p>\n I\u2019m excited to see where this one goes. Now, to be fair, I am a guy who really<\/em> likes Victoria III<\/em><\/strong>, which is also very \u2018crunchy,\u2019 so Europa Universalis V<\/em> is pitched right at my kind of player. I do think that Paradox is going to have to think, in terms of future development, what their \u2018introductory\u2019 game is, because I\u2019d imagine someone coming in with no experience<\/em> of a Paradox game is going to find Europa Universalis V<\/em> pretty challenging to pick up (but rewarding).<\/p>\n But I\u2019m also excited to play more and see how these systems interactions change<\/em> over the various ages (the game breaks its tech tree into chronological \u2018ages\u2019). There are a bunch of key variables \u2013 crown power, control, market prices, and so on \u2013 which I can see get significantly tweaked either by technologies or modifiers linked to specific periods, which I can imagine really shake things up pretty dramatically.<\/p>\n But beyond just the \u2018more systems\u2019 approach, I\u2019m really impressed by the effort, in a game that remains on some level fundamentally about states, to bring in a broader vision of history<\/strong>, which encompasses the historical agency of far more kinds of people and their competing interests and visions. I think I\u2019ll have a lot more to say about this game as time goes on, both as I have more time with it and as it gets tweaks and more content.<\/p>\n Now, if you\u2019ll excuse me, I still need to figure out how I am going to cut France down to size.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acoup.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025102.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\")
Is it Good?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acoup.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025103.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\")
The Historical Viewpoint of Europa Universalis V<\/em><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acoup.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025101.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\")
Which I am definitely, in this screenshot, using to better the safety of the Empire, by which I mean build out my economy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nConclusions<\/h2>\n
Like this:<\/h3>\n