Recent reviews by Liz Mutton

Ok so I reviewed Leviathan and that was pretty fun so it's time to review this. And unlike Leviathan, this is pretty damn good.

I'll go through the countries one by one and then I'll go through the overall changes made in the free update and the overall quality of the DLC.

Gotland - Extremely fun. Being a pirate republic, plundering the Baltics is awesome. Somehow the monarchy path, basically trying to become Denmark, was some of the most fun I've ever had in a single-player war.
Teutonic Order - 2 paths, crusading vs. secular prussian path, both are incredibly satisfying and rewarding, definitely worth playing.
Riga - Paradox attempted to make this nation fun to play and *stay* as a OPM. Were they successful? No, not really. But I think they still did a good job with the mission tree and I honestly don't think I could've done any better if I were in their position.
Denmark - Trying to keep the Kalmar Union together whilst dealing with expansion into the Baltics, the Hansa, and the British Isles (if you are good enough) is really challenging but incredibly fun.
Sweden - Probably made a lil too easy, but hey, it's more fun because of it

Now some overall changes that I really appreciate. The creation of the 'Balten' culture in Riga was something I never knew I wanted but I really needed. The new Grand Veche Republic for Novgorod is pretty cool. Ducal Prussia being a Polish vassal is something I've wanted for a very long time. Finally, and this is the most important thing for me, I was worried that Paradox creating very expansive and possibly overpowered mission trees in the Teutons and Livonians concerned me in regards to AI. But I've ran a few AI Games and both of the Orders most of the time fall very quickly to their neighbours, as was historical. Not that I don't appreciate these countries or like to see them grow, but I think I speak for many when I say I wouldn't like to see the Teutons go into Russia or conquer all of Germany every single time.

Then there's the bad. Not much to say here, but there are a few things. The changes to Poland made them a little too overpowered, and I now see more often them not own all of Russia by 1600, which is unfortunate. I know Paradox has stated that they don't want to add any more provinces for performance reasons but a few more provinces in Lapland or the Baltics would've been extremely appreciated in order to create modern borders. We have colonial cultures (portuguese turns into brazillian, castilian turns into mexican or platinean, english turns into american) but with the rise of colonial missions for scandinavian nations, I would've thought that they would've added something similar to scandinavian cultures, but no.

Finally, the re-balances. Lots of good things to say here -
- Economic and Quantity nerfed heavily, with a much needed boost to Espionage (although still not worth it imo).
- More government reforms is always appreciated.
- No more slacken recruitment abuse is very positive.
- More estate privileges is really nice.
- Removing the dev cost from the ideas and putting it into expand infrastructure is something I love, it makes playing tall easier for smaller nations and harder for bigger nations, something I think should be the case.

As for a conclusion, Paradox has learnt much from Leviathan. I have found absolutely no bugs so far, I've had a full day of fun playing as these updated nations, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel like this DLC was actually worth my money, and I bought this for full price. Would recommend 200%.

Little to no bugs AND excellent new mechanics, making Iberia very enjoyable and dynamic. These little regional content packs have proven over the last year to be extremely successful in hoi4, eu4, and now ck3. I'm incredibly happy that Paradox has decided to go in this direction, it was definitely the right thing to do.

All of this, and it won't bankrupt you like other Paradox DLC's, to say it's worth the price would be an understatement.

I've never properly reviewed a game or dlc before, so here goes nothing.

I'm fairly new to Paradox games. I got Hearts of Iron IV when it came out, and later branched out into Crusader Kings II, and Europa Universalis IV. I've also made mods for both Hearts of Iron IV and Europa Universalis IV, so safe to say I'm fairly familiar with the Paradox code. An unpopular opinion that I've always held was that I never minded the big price tag Paradox put on their many, MANY DLC's, mainly because most if not all of them changed the game in substantial ways and the free update that comes with the DLC's makes the game more enjoyable, and this in my opinion is especially true for EU4. Which brings me onto... this.

Leviathan has certainly changed the game in different ways, but it is the polar opposite of enjoyable. For the sake of simplicity I'll be combining the changes made in the free 1.31 Update and the additions of the Leaviathan DLC. So with that in mind, this DLC was not 'dead on arrival' or never good. This was a promising concept which had the ability to be a really fun and exciting experience, and due to negligence, laziness, and non-existent play-testing, it's true potential was never reached and it fell flat on its face, which is I think perhaps the saddest part of it all.

It's Broken -
The worst offender. Games will frequently crash. This isn't new to EU4, but there's a whole lot more crashes now. There's a chance that your save games will be corrupted and you will forever be unable to play them. The Majapahit mission tree was broken as the Mission Tree was a DLC exclusive and the Disaster was not. Sure, plenty of this was fixed in 1.31.1, but Paradox should not be relying on overworking its coders to fix the problems they caused for releasing a rushed, buggy, and clearly unifinished update.

It's Unbalanced -
In 1.31, the AI would automatically leave Federations pretty much always, so unless there was a human player microing a federation for half a century, Federations wre not existent. In 1.31.1, the AI seeks to join Federations as much as humanly possible, and therefore by 1445 all of North America is filled to the brim with Federations, making warfare sluggish and way too large for early game. Paradox is as of yet unable to find the perfect Federation balance, I pray they do. They have also added a new AI rule that whenever a nation is over their governing capacity, they release vassals. Sounds good right? Well Ming starts over their governing capacity at the start, and thus they always release three vassals no matter what. This could've been avoided if they had done even the most BASIC playtesting, I am genuinely in awe of how they didn't find this before they put it out. But of course there's the elephant in the room, super-capitals, playing tall, and monuments are way too OP. This one I can slightly forgive, since at least it's a fun experience to build a megacity and hunt for Great Projects, but rebalancing of even this needs to be done.

It's Boring -
This is the most subjective and debatable issue I have with the game, but I feel like it must be said. Lots of the content that they have added to the game is not enjoyable and I struggle to get through the first hundred years of the game without wanting to play something else. South East Asia doesn't suffer from this problem as a lot of love was put into the region and the new mission trees, events, and disasters have really made the area interesting. No, I'm referring to Oceania. Small mission trees with repeating and even sometimes non-existent ui, and more generally a lack of things to do. It's a shame, this region had potential, but after forming Aotearoa and Hawai'i, you play the waiting game for a century or two and honestly it's worse than watching paint dry. The new updates to religions such as Zoroastrian, Sikh, and Totemist have been a long time coming, but after one or two campaigns of each religion I feel like I've already seen all there is to see in them.

Conclusion -
Don't blame the individual devs, don't blame the playtesters, don't blame any of the coders or artists for this monumental mistake, blame Paradox. There were always two easy solutions to this mess they created, but they didn't want to even consider them, and thus here we are. Solution 1, and I think this would've been the best course of action, DELAY THE DLC! We're fans who are passionate about the game, and we want to see it be the best possible game it can be, and I firmly believe that we could've seen a better Leaviathan if they delayed the release by a month or two. Sure it would've made people mad, but I think I speak for all EU4 fans when I say I prefer a good DLC released late to a trash DLC released early. Solution 2, LOWER THE PRICE! You give it the golden treatment, £15.49, and I expect it to be a good. I know it's obvious but, high price means high expectations, and if they made it cheaper I can guarantee the reviews would be a lot less harsh.

I'm also aware that probably 80-90% of the bugs and overall issues that I've mentioned will be fixed very soon, I'm sure of it. However, this feeds into a much larger problem, and that's that Paradox can't just release a big trashy update and then patch it up over the best few weeks. What I want is a stable and enjoyable experience from the very start. Paradox will learn from this mistake, in fact they probably already have. And I won't say whether you should or shouldn't buy it, it'll get better with time. Just remember this...

Paradox, you can fix a broken DLC, but you'll never fix my broken heart :'(
lol

Simply the most beautiful game in existence. I dream of Bernie Sanders every night, and I am yes. Yes!

Hard to review without spoiling anything. Her Story is a Story about Her. Or is it?! idk