Welcome to Europa Universalis IV: Sword and Sorcery, where you as the ruler, use your mighty sword to conquer new lands, and use your precious mana to govern your nation. This title should also be known as A History of Hide-n-Seek: From Renaissance to Early Industrialization, and now that you have lots of tireless AI buddies to play this childish little game with, as substitutes of your cold-blooded friends, which as if you would have.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game so much, even though mercs were broken af pre-emperor/1.30 due to having infinite manpower, were broken pre-1.30.2 resulted from being splittable using convoys (and thus you got free generals), are still broken after the patch as mercs become fully unsplittable and require sufficient convoys to transport, and suffer attrition everywhere mid-game once your nation has grown a bit.

Even though fort ZOC has been counter-intuitive from, I think, the very beginning, together with the lack of rule specifications and occasional weird scenarios for which nobody has solid explanation, it makes army maneuver in hostile lands a pain in the ass, and in friendly lands it is just, full of surprises.

Even though milaccess just does not make any sense. Sucks every time you wage wars on nations also in other wars.

Even though every war is total war, requiring all belligerents to mobilize the whole nation and fight fiercely for a several years, but yet magically the population of the continent still sits fine. Also every war is attrition war, where AI never surrenders even if their army has a drastic face-losing defeat and will never come back, requiring the de facto winner to siege some forts otherwise it complains about you demanding without occupying forts "in the area".

Even though obviously AI sees farther than you could (3 tiles if not more vs 1 tile) so that "they won't make stupid decisions". And about the 3 tiles, I highly suspect that all countries not on human players' side share vision with each other, which might provide reasonable explanation for phenomenons that AI reacts upon your army movement far away from frontline, and accusations that AI is more dumb as your vassals and allies.

Even though AI gets "significantly" increased army/navy traditions to get far better generals/admirals than you, due to nonsense like "AI usually gets involved in less wars than the player". Three-star generals are so ridiculously common among AI nations yet my officers still suck with Offense+Quality.

Even though AI is so agile so you find out that most of the engagements are made when AI is willing to. When military supremacy is at you hands, the wargame is but hide-n-seek -- Your knowledgeable opponents in Europe would send troops to Asia just to get some warscores by sieging some undefended lands, and will at once disappear in fog of war when you move your troops to counter.

Even though AI has been waived the need for naval attrition so that the lovely Portugal can save 11 ish ducats monthly with 70 ish ships moving between New World and Old World, so that Ottomans can send all their Galleys to the Baltic for blockade.

Even though several stupid mechanism are solely built to "entertain" players: The trust and favor system, the Call for Peace, the unconditional surrender (which no one would use), the "Want your provinces" opinion modifier (so that you cannot utilize this to block institutions from spreading to other countries),

Even though "lucky nation" setting is dumb af with 25% manpower recovery (400 mana) and 5% siege (100 mana worth) for better army, -20% advisor cost (full set bonus, counting as 400 mana since it is Innovative), -20% mercs cost (800 mana worth), and -1 interest (800 mana) for more efficient ducat spending, and most importantly, -25% AE (400 mana) with +25% improve relations (400 mana) for faster expansions, with a sum to 3300, or at least 11.5 years of advantage in math expectation (3 from base, 3 from monarch ability, 1 from adviser, 1 from estate). This setting simply nails it for the big blobs and makes the game almost constant in terms of great powers. Russia in the east, France and Britain in the west, Austria as the Emperor, Spain as the lord of New World, and the Ottoblob. I still have no idea why these boost cannot be achieved by national ideas, or even by missions, in a more localized and tailored way.

Even though uprising peasants might be able to conscript a larger army than their king, while having same level of discipline and morale. Even though AI sucks at rebel handling af at peace but suddenly good at leveraging rebels to defend when invaded.

Even though alliances and peace/war negotiations are not dynamic at all. There is no short-term treaty, there is not something like leagues of the three emperors, no switching side, no war-joining and rejoining, no land trading, no intervention from neighbors (great powers only when war is not balanced), no peace conference like HOI4 so player could only wish if not a war leader.

Even though the community has been a little, toxic, if I have to put it this way. I know this is the age of internet and everyone is trying to make themselves looking impressive, but abusing "confirmation bias" will do no good. Literally, the player base of this title is consisted of three kinds: People asserting themselves better than devs, keeping calling out what they would call "easy solutions"; people always defending the game, accepting everything and calling every compromise made (on AI esp) inevitable and suggesting that people whining should implement the solutions, instead of devs; and, the silent majority.

Even even. I can do this all day. There is just so much I wish EU4 could have done better in the gameplay delivery. Maybe all these can be found in future DLCs. Again, don't get me wrong, this title opens the gate of European history for me and now I am reading all kinds of history/political/economics books, and thanks to EU4 I have got a solid grasp of geography. I really really love this title.

But I might not come back again. See you in EU5, or VIC3, if that is the "secret project".

Personally I think this is way overrated. Feels like a beautiful failure. Maybe I will change my mind later.

Well, no. After a proud 80h and a rage quit resulted from chores after chores after the formal ending, I can say that I think as a game, this is a piece of trash coated with gold, a pile of dogpoop coated in chocolate. Realism? Only when R* wants it to lengthen your suffering. The story? Full of red and dead, all about a f&%$# stupid "plan", and then some artificial redemption during which you either give fellers money, or kill people for these fellers, or both. Gunfight? Bullet time and click heads. Hunting? Good luck finding perfect hunts. Honors, bounty and witness? Don't you worry, we will get it right in RDR3. Brawling and QTE during cut scenes? When you f$^% lay with your wives, remember to push the f#%*^ "shift" key when you push in and f$*&# release when you pull out, otherwise you lose the dog darned f$&&*^ lay down, for f's sake.

Seriously, the second most boring game I have ever played, only second to Dragon Quest Builders 2. How did you guys end up making a game tedious like this? I have just wasted my 80h here, don't waste yours.