Europa Universalis 5 (EU5) Review – The Most Complex Grand Strategy Game I Have Ever Played
- Genre: Grand-Strategy | Historical
- Developer: Paradox Tinto
- Publisher: Paradox Interactive
- Price: $59.99 | 59,99€ | £49.99
- Release Date: 4 November , 2025
- Reviewer: Nuno Marques (PC)
- Target Audience: Grand-Strategy players, History buffs, and Paradox Games fans.
- Final Score: 8.7/10
Starting up Europa Universalis V (EU5) immediately showed me how challenging it would be. Even as someone who’s played many complicated strategy games, I found this one incredibly complex and intimidating. Let’s begin our review by traveling back to the chaotic mid-14th century.
Europa Universalis V differs significantly from its previous version by starting in 1337, over a century earlier than 1444. This places players right in the middle of the late Middle Ages, just before two huge historical events: the Hundred Years’ War between France and England, and the Black Death. The Black Death begins in 1346 and devastates populations across Europe, Africa, and Asia, wiping out between a third and half of the world’s people. These events have a major impact on the game, presenting difficult early challenges that are well-integrated. The Black Death, in particular, is incredibly harsh, potentially undoing any economic progress you’ve made and forcing you to completely rebuild your economy from a state of chaos.
The way population works has been completely overhauled. Instead of a simple number, you now manage different groups of people – nobles, clergy, laborers, and others – each with their own skills, happiness, and what they need to survive. Unlike previous games, people actually have to be in a location to work there, making the economy much more detailed and complex. There are a lot of factors to keep track of – population numbers, the goods they produce, and prices – to build a truly efficient economy. It’s a deep system, but very rewarding for players who are willing to learn it.
Europa Universalis V adds a new Estate system that puts population management at the heart of the game. You’ll now oversee four main groups – Nobles, Clergy, Burghers, and Peasants – each with their own goals and concerns. Think of it like the social pyramid you learned in history class. Plus, your own royal court is also considered an Estate. Nearly everything you do as a ruler will affect how these groups feel, and losing their support can create serious problems.
The power of different social groups, called Estates, is a core part of the game. You’ll always see how happy and influential they are at the top-left of the screen. The laws you pass directly affect their power – supporting merchants will make them stronger, while limiting the nobility’s rights will likely make them unhappy and less loyal. This is a big change from previous games, and it connects the population and the economy closely, which makes sense historically. However, it also means you’ll constantly need to manage these groups and solve problems they create. Keeping these powerful groups happy is a real challenge – history shows us that people in power don’t like change!
While the new Estates system impacts gameplay in many ways, I think the biggest change is how players experience the game. In previous Europa Universalis IV games, you played as the abstract ‘spirit of a nation,’ making decisions for the country as a whole. Now, as the Crown – one of the Estates – you’re immediately separated from that unified national identity. Your goals often clash with those of other Estates. I quickly realized I was playing a game focused much more on my ruler’s personal interests, and less on the nation of, for example, Castile or England. This is historically accurate, as the period the game covers saw power becoming increasingly centralized, and I find this new challenge, even though it’s difficult, very engaging.
A core part of the game involves how much control you have over your country, which is determined by where your capital city is located and how well-connected your provinces are to it. This control level directly impacts how much tax revenue and soldiers you can raise from each province. At the start, provinces near your capital are usually strong, but control quickly weakens the further you get, making distant areas difficult to manage. This is a good and realistic feature – running a large empire is challenging, and keeping all your provinces productive requires effort. It’s particularly important to establish control in a new region before launching a major war, because expanding your empire isn’t as easy or profitable if you can’t effectively manage your new territories.
The game’s control system is excellent and adds interesting strategic depth, but the way new regions are integrated after conquest feels flawed. After taking over a region, you have to assign a governor to stay there for a lengthy integration period before you start earning income from it. While some integration time is reasonable, it currently takes between 10 and 20 years to integrate even a single province – not an entire country! This feels unrealistic, especially for areas close to your capital. Ideally, integration should begin immediately upon capturing a major city or province, and be managed by existing local leaders. I appreciate the game’s increased economic focus and attempt to discourage rapid expansion, but this current system feels unnecessarily restrictive. It’s disappointing, given how much effort went into creating such a detailed and immersive simulation.
I want to explain the new market system in detail, which is a big change from Europa Universalis IV, but I’m still learning it myself. Essentially, it’s a market that responds to supply and demand, constantly changing based on what people need – and those needs shift as populations move around, as we talked about before. You can automate this system, and I recommend doing so when you first start playing. We’ll cover automation more later. Despite all the work that went into creating this complex economic and population system, Europa Universalis V isn’t perfect. One major issue is how quickly everything happens. I haven’t found any indication that market changes take time to register, but the constant, immediate shifts are too much to manage. It feels like I’m missing out on a key part of the game because I’m forced to automate things. While you can choose not to automate, it means I have to pause the game almost constantly just to make small adjustments.
These paragraphs highlight how Europa Universalis V truly shines as a game centered on the economic and social realities of the historical period it represents. It’s incredibly complex and simulates things at such a deep level that I don’t think I’ll fully understand it anytime soon! Every decision, no matter how small, can have significant consequences later on. I especially appreciate the depth of the economic and societal systems, even though they are challenging to master. The game’s attempt to realistically portray historical problems is really engaging, and even though I may never fully grasp everything, I’m thoroughly enjoying the experience.
I’ve spent the most time playing the Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron games from Paradox Interactive. I’m not really drawn to the military aspects of these games, though. I enjoy Crusader Kings III for its intricate medieval politics – it feels a lot like Game of Thrones – and Hearts of Iron IV for the fun of rewriting history. From what I’ve seen of Europa Universalis V, it doesn’t seem like that will change, and I’m happy with that. As many readers of this site know, I prefer strategic thinking and directly controlling units. If I can’t be a commander on the battlefield, the military systems don’t usually capture my interest.
What really grabs me about the military in Europa Universalis V is how realistically it all connects to the rest of the game – especially the population and economy. Unlike other games, your initial troops aren’t just magically appearing. They’re raised from the people living in your provinces, which immediately impacts how many workers you have and, therefore, your economy. And here’s the kicker: if those troops die in battle, they’re gone for good – they don’t come back to work when the war ends! This means you can’t just think about having the biggest army; you have to really think through your strategy. Starting a war without enough money or a solid economy can ruin you fast. Plus, it takes time to fully integrate conquered provinces, so just rushing off to conquer everything isn’t a good idea. EU5 really discourages reckless military expansion, and I love that.
It’s hard to say how this game’s military system stacks up against the latest version of Europa Universalis IV, but it definitely borrows a lot from the successful formula of Hearts of Iron IV. A key feature is assigning broad strategic goals to your armies, which cuts down on tedious micromanagement. For example, instead of manually splitting troops to attack multiple cities, you can simply order a ‘carpet siege’ and the game’s commanders will handle the details. You can assign armies various missions, from aggressive attacks and sieges to more defensive tasks like patrolling areas. I’ve found it works really well – in my playthrough as Castile, it was a significant improvement.
My main issue with the game’s army system is how raising troops works. You can only call up levies after you’ve declared war, which doesn’t make much sense. Preparing for war often requires secrecy and a quick start, especially if you’re facing a stronger opponent. It would be great to be able to have troops ready to go as soon as war begins. I realize this might be a balancing choice, but instead of restricting when I can raise armies, the developers could add a warning system to let other countries know if I’m moving troops around. This could even create new strategies, like forcing a neighbor to keep their army mobilized, which would hurt their economy. Just some thoughts on how to improve things.
Let’s quickly cover diplomacy and colonization. While I haven’t explored colonization in great detail, both systems are simple to use. Diplomacy works as you’d expect, with various options and outcomes based on different factors. Colonization is a neat feature, especially for seafaring nations like Portugal or Castile. If you play as one of them, you can start sending out expeditions to explore and claim new lands very early in the game. This involves funding expeditions to discover what’s out there, then slowly building colonies by sending people and supplies. These colonies will eventually send resources back to your home markets, using the same economic and population systems we’ve already talked about. Just to give you a sense of the game’s scale, Europa Universalis V features over 20,000 different locations.
We’ve gone over the main features of Europa Universalis V, so let’s talk about how complex the game is and how that interacts with its automation features. I usually like games with a lot of depth, but I believe that complexity needs to be balanced by clear execution. The game’s systems should be logical and feel realistic, and it should have a great tutorial and user interface to help players understand everything. Europa Universalis V both succeeds and falls short in these areas, and I’ll start by explaining what I mean, beginning with the tutorial.
The game’s tutorial isn’t very helpful – it felt like being quickly shown the ropes by someone too busy to explain things properly. While that happens in real life, it doesn’t make learning the game easy. I’ve played other games from this developer, so the interface wasn’t a problem for me, but I can see how a new player could be completely lost. The interface isn’t bad overall and usually displays information well, but it has a few small issues. Some buttons don’t look clickable, and others do unexpected things when you click them. The most frustrating example is when assigning commanders – two buttons on top of each other control different actions, which is confusing. These are minor things, but worth pointing out.
Two features are sure to help players manage the game’s complexity:
Europa Universalis V offers incredibly detailed maps for just about anything you need – and they’re really important for making good decisions. My only frustration is that the game sometimes hides the map when you’re trying to build something. For example, if I wanted to check a location’s population before building there, I kept having to switch back and forth between the map and the game’s interface. This can get confusing when you’re managing so many different places. Otherwise, the maps are fantastic!
Players have a lot of control over automation in the game. You can choose to let the computer handle any aspect you don’t enjoy, like managing the economy, diplomacy, internal affairs, warfare, or even exploring and colonizing. This allows you to concentrate on the parts of the game you find most engaging. For example, you could play as a ruler who only makes high-level decisions, leaving the details to your advisors.
Before wrapping up this review, let’s talk about how the game looks, sounds, and runs. Thankfully, there’s not much to criticize! The graphics are beautiful, with a detailed map and realistic movement of cities and armies – it really feels like you’re witnessing history unfold. The sound design is solid, though not groundbreaking – it’s enjoyable without being spectacular. Performance-wise, I didn’t experience any crashes or major issues, but the game doesn’t always run smoothly. It occasionally stutters, especially when loading things or at certain points, which can be a little frustrating. I’m not sure if this is due to my computer or the game itself, but it happened often enough to mention. You can find my PC specs above for reference.
Final Verdict and Score
8.5/10
It’s nearly impossible to fully review Europa Universalis V – it’s just too huge, complicated, and captivating. I could write endlessly about all its features, both good and bad. But after playing for a couple of weeks, I want to share a few final thoughts.
As a long-time Paradox fan, I’m really excited about Europa Universalis V! It feels like they took everything people loved from their other games and put it all together. The core gameplay is already fantastic, but I think EU5 could be even better with some more detailed tutorials. Some of the systems, especially how the economy works, are pretty complex, and new players might get lost. I think letting players fully play with the economy, instead of automating it, would make the game even more rewarding and immersive.
Honestly, the best way I can describe Europa Universalis V is just… huge. It’s everything I want in a grand strategy game – really deep and complex. And what I really appreciate is that the developers weren’t afraid to try new things, even though they could have just stuck with what worked in Europa Universalis IV. So far, those changes have totally paid off, and it’s been a fantastic experience.
After I finish reviewing a game, the biggest sign it’s truly good is whether I still want to play it, even if I’m not making videos or writing about it anymore. And in this case, I absolutely do!
I’m giving Europa Universalis V a ‘yes’ not because I believe it’s a flawless game that will revolutionize the grand strategy genre like its predecessor, Europa Universalis IV, did. Instead, I’m impressed by the wealth of historical detail and options it offers. It allows for a lot of creative freedom when playing with history, which is rare in more serious war games. Plus, I’m excited to keep playing and experiment with different strategies to see how they affect each country’s development.
I hope you found this review helpful! I’d love to hear your thoughts, and whether or not you’re planning to pick up Europa Universalis V.
Game Score Breakdown
- Core Gameplay & Mechanics: 9/10
- Content: 9.5/10
- Graphics & Artstyle: 8/10
- Sound & Music: 7/10
- Technical Performance: 7/10
- Replayability & Value: 10/10
- Monetization & Business Mode: 7/10
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2025-11-04 20:46