As we will see, the great strength of EU4 in this regard is that the system shows how a relatively simple set of premises concerning the state’s need to maximize military power in order to survive lead to a host of complex behaviors broadly consist with the political science school of thought known as ‘realism’ (or IR Neorealism (sometimes just ‘realism’), where the IR stands for international relations). This week, we’re going to turn to war and diplomacy and discuss what I think is one of EU4‘s strongest elements in the depth of its political and military simulator. One of EU4’s loading screens, this one showing their rendition of Isabella I of Castile. We also discussed last week the basic structure of EU4, as well as my own experience with it, so if you want to jump back and reread that, the first post is here. Last time, we took a look at how EU4 was a game fundamentally about states and how the decision to orient the game in this way both expressed a theory of history centered on states, but also served in many cases to obscure the impact that state actions (particularly the emergence of the modern administrative state and the nation) had on actual people.

This is the second part in a series ( I, II, III, IV) that examines the historical assumptions behind Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy computer game set in the early modern period, Europa Universalis IV ( EU4).

Eu4 best country for world conquest