Recent reviews by Coyote808

***DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME***

This is a gotcha game. DO NOT DOWNLOAD! If you were hoping for an Airline based tycoon game, this is NOT it. Want to have your flights actually depart? Gotta pay real money. Wanna get your planes delivered? Gotta pay real money. Thankfully the game itself is free so I didn't ACTUALLY have to give them any money.

Too bad there isn't a real option in this genre of games since Aerobiz Supersonic.

The Hearts of Iron series has historically been extraordinarily complex and seemingly insurmountable to the typical gamer. The game has been greatly streamlined with this latest installation but much of the complexities still remain. To those that wish to take charge of a nation during the tumultuous 1930s era and guide it to victory, this may just be the best thing out there to sate that desire.

Just keep in mind that the UI itself is not very friendly for people with color vision problems, however, there are many mods available out there to help those of us with the color saturation. This is the case with most any game from Paradox Dev Studios. The game is infitely moddable and a blast to play. I give it a 9/10, if only for its reputation for complexity and lack of built in color vision settings.

DISCLAIMER: I am an unashamed Paradox fan boy and will be until they have done me wrong. They consistently take a strong look at their games and provide support for many years after release. Ever since Crusader Kings 2 (CK2), the polish of the games has increased immensely and has made me fall in love with them even more.

UPDATES: With the number of expansion packs that have been released recently, the game has been expanded upon immensely with the usual slew of Paradox game events. The best part is that you do not need to buy them to get many of the events. Although it is definitely a benefit to get them, they aren't very pricy any how.

Europa Universalis IV is a game from Paradox that yet again takes the grand strategy bar up another level. Previous titles in the franchise were clunky and had a learning cliff instead of a learning curve. This iteration smooths it all out by giving you a shallow learning curve with dozens of things to learn along the way. It can be as hard as you want to as difficult as you want. It strikes an amazing balance in a grand strategy game that is hard to match. I highly suggest that you take a look at this and Crusader Kings II if you want an in depth experience for the Grand Strategy genre.

A few things still bother me, but they do not detract much from the game. The smallish player base keeps multiplayer fun to a small group of folks on the Paradox forums, and the quirks of a paradox game such as an exploitable economic model and diplomatic AI. Again, they are small and do not detract greatly from the experience.

Overall: 9/10

The learning curve is steep, but if you enjoy being a dictator, then this is the game for you.