Recent reviews by M2t5

The game is incredible. However the game is also broken. The sheer amount of DLC makes the base game very frustrating to play. Which in its own right seems fair enough, if you want content you should pay for it. That is until you realise that the core DLC pretty much costs as much as the game. And there are problems with the way this DLC is implemented.

Each successive DLC seems to not add to the game but rather forces the player to buy it so that they can actually play the game as it is intended. Paradox has used DLC in EUIV as a tool to overhual mechanics, which is great. Some things definetly needed to be and still need to be fixed. Additionally, they patch in most of the content of these DLC's for free. Which is also amazing, overall, their DLC policy is amazing. However this great policy hasn't aged well. The shear amount of DLC that EUIV has, has left the base game crippled. Each sucessive DLC locked a certain feature behind itself. (transfer occupation in art of war, development in common sense, liberty desire interations in conquest of paradise etc.) But since the majority of content surrounding these features were patched into the base game as updates, small parts and mechanics of the game became unusable.

So while yes, institutions may be better than fixed tech pemalties, you can't access the better version of westernization without paying for common sense. This is why many people have been saying that game costs upwards of three hundred dollars, because to access features in the base game, you must buy a DLC to unlock key parts of those features. It gets very frustrating very fast. I understand why paradox needs to make money, but perhaps they should reconsider how they release DLC so that not having one DLC doesn't make certain features in the base game unusable.

If you are willing to buy at least the core DLC (art of war, and common sense are the big two) and you enjoy this genre of game, it is definetly worth the purchase. If you are looking for something similar, look into Hearts of Iron 4 (that game has similar problems, but there is less DLC, so initial cost isn't quite as high). The other two games in the paradox historical simulation series are Crusader Kings 2 and Victoria 2. So check those out too.