Europa Universalis V

This game is so bloated with mechanics and modifiers. Every time they try to fix something, something else breaks. It's like a constant game of pulling strings, until it's stable enough to play. But even gameplay is weirdly lacking. It feels so tedious to manage your state, while also lacking freedom of what to do. It's almost like the game was designed as a timelaps simulator where mechanics play themselves and don't require human input. But the worse thing for me is lack of historical immersion. The game is a pure chaotic sandbox, the AI is the worst in the series, and the game's ages mean nothing here. They tried to simulate the time periods with core game mechanics, but it's clear that railroading is needed. Though devs still refuse to add mission trees. At this rate, I am not even sure this game would reach the peak level of EU4, and all my hopes are for the modders to save this game.

EU 4 is one of my favorite games. I've been playing it since I was in middle school and I'm now about to graduate college. A seemingly endless amount of fun experiences and hours burned playing it. I absolutely love history almost solely because of EU 4 and have spent an absurd amount of hours learning as much as I can, all starting with EU 4. Easily one of the greatest games ever created. When EU 5 was announced I was very excited. I couldn't wait for a modern remaster of the game set in an earlier time period. New map, new nations, new mechanics, new everything. I was absolutely ecstatic. This was Paradox's magnum opus. The ultimate strategy game. There's no way they could fail, especially after some of the previous disaster launches. Unfortunately, that appears to not be the case. The game is very mid and feels extremely unfinished. It's probably the most mediocre game I've ever played. EU 4 was extremely fun because it was the perfect blend of arcadey gameplay and historical accuracy which created an addicting loop of gameplay that was super satisfying and fun. EU 5 takes the historical accuracy side way too far in my opinion, which while I understand a lot of people enjoy …

There's a term that perfectly sums up this "video game": Cognitive Overload. From Google -> Cognitive Overload: "when the information or demands placed on you exceed your brain's working memory capability. This state leads to mental fatigue, decision paralysis, and a drop in overall performance. There are three types: Intrinsic load: the inherent difficulty of the task or information itself. Extraneous load: the mental effort wasted on poorly presented information or distracting environments. Germane load: the productive mental effort used to process new information and permanently store it in your long-term memory." In other words: too much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ happening at once, so my brain shuts off. You know that feeling when you just open up a new software and you see all the features and you just go: "you know what? this is too much, i don't think I'll ever be good at this so I'm just gonna save myself the trouble and turn it off." Well... I've only been able to stomach 30 minutes of this game before turning it off. It's like they combined EU4, Victoria, Crusader Kings III, and more into one game and called it a day. EU4 already had a lot to manage. This is EU4 times 100. It's just …

gud gem

Tedious and endless micromanaging

As someone that has played EU since the very first one and has over 10K hours in EU4, it took me a while to get into this game. The last version of EU4 (after 10 years of development) was so great that I kept going back to it; however I just did 300 years of Holland to Netherlands to Germany campaign (with mods) and it is the most fund I have ever had in any game in my life. It was so great that I can't look at EU4's monarch points or development clicks as viable gaming. Population, trade, and economic development is just amazing. The newest version has also made diplomacy incredibly detailed and fun. Playing a three way with England and France to keep both of them to weak to crush me was super fund, actually getting help from Bohemia in defending me as a small HRE state against France made me value the HRE like in no game before unless I was going for revoking. My favorite part of this game that laps ever other EU game is the actual need for getting trade goods. In all previous games- there was never a need to get specific goods into your empire- whether by trade or by conquest. Sure conquest in mexico or peru was great to get richer from gold, but the English empire never neede…