With Europa Universalis IV coming out this year, Paradox has started a Call to Arms campaign. Anyone interested should head over there and sign up. If you click my link, then I will get credit for signing you up and I would appreciate that much.

Europa Universalis IV Call to Arms

Hope to see you all in game!

Thadar

Thank you to all that have signed up so far. I am really looking forward to EU4 and hope you all are too.

Europa Universalis IV Call to Arms

Thadar

No problem. I'm going to piggyback on your thread here with my own link (hopefully you don't mind).

EU4 Call to Arms

Nope, I have no issues with that. Thank you.

Europa Universalis IV Call to Arms

Woot! The demo is out:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/08/splendid-the-europa-universalis-iv-demo-is-here/#more-163682

i'm sorry I won't be able to join. Paradox pushed their dlc based business model too far for my liking. with Crusader Kings II. There is simply no reason to pay the full price now then collect all those add-ons rather than wait for a collector edition whatever that will include the whole bundle.

Add to this that EU IV uses steamworks...

YES! EUIV works without using Steam!

I copied the EUIV files from Steamapps to C:\. Exited Steam, game ran absolutely fine. Multiplayer is greyed out of course but that's expected, I don't play the mp anyways.

That's good news.

So far, I like the game a lot, they've changed just enough from EU 3 to make the game interesting without being completely different, and the only bug I've seen is that achievements don't unlock for me, which I don't really care about.

Haha, yeah it definitely works without Steam. I've even taken the files and installed it on my laptop in my workplace and it works. Though the shitty laptop takes near 5 mins to load up to main menu and another minute to initialise the game.

I'm a Hearts of Iron 2 and 3 player. Then went to play CK2. Never touched EU3 sadly even though it sat on my Gamersgate shelves for quite sometime. Watched a few Quill18 EUIV videos, got a basic grasp. Started a game as Castille on Easy coz I'm a noob and also also I played Leon in CK2, tried in 2 games to attack Aragon, no success. 3rd game, France attacked Aragon, wiped every troop off their territories, then Aragon surrendered but France didn't get any land off it funnily enough. I took the opportunity to attack and took most of Aragon's lands. Feeling great :) Really like the technology research for EUIV and the war diplomacy warscore-demand territory thingy.

In order for the achievements to unlock, you have to be playing with Lucky Nations on and I believe be in Iron Man mode. That will force Auto Saves every month and such which can get annoying if you are blazing through on high speed..

From reading dev diaries, it looks brilliant. I like the unique features of religions and the new trade system. Not sure how much is new overall as I haven't played CK2 yet (Want to complete my HOI3 and Vicky 2 games, I can't balance out my Paradox campaign times :P).

Yes I read that on the forums. I dislike autosaves and don't care much about achievements, so after a short test game I haven't bothered to run on ironman to get them.

Thanks for the answer though.
I'm still having a great deal of fun with EU 4, although I'm not sure all the changes from EU 3 were good ones.

How would it compare to other PDS games?

Europa Universalis is their most generalist game, imo.
Hearts of Iron is focused on war, Victoria on the economy, Crusader Kings on managing your dynasty. EU involves all of those, without going nearly as much in detail on any of them.

I'd say it's also their most open game, since there are lots of ways to develop and expand your country (war, diplomacy, colonization, trade mostly), all of which can work to put you on top, but no single nation can expect to be best at everything (at least until you've already won and are so much bigger than any other country that they're irrelevant).

Nice, always liked that in PDS games you had so much variety on how to expand (except for HOI of course) and it sounds like it's main focus is this.