Europa Universalis 5: A Deep Dive, Even for Veterans – and a Look Ahead at performance
Though, EU5 is still an extremely extensive and simultaneously occurring finely detailed grand strategy title that puts even Paradox professionals to the test. After several dozen hours of play, understanding even the basics, let alone the nuances, can be a challenge. In order to appeal to beginners, developer Paradox Tinto has introduced a new feature: automation. Players can now entrust the AI with certain aspects of government, such as trade or diplomacy, allowing them to focus on other governmental tasks. The extent to which the game relieves players of workload is customizable.
Even those familiar with Europa Universalis 4 and Paradox strategy games in general – players who have already invested hundreds of hours and significant funds in DLC – find themselves somewhat overwhelmed by the variety of options in EU5. How and whether the new automation functions effectively, and whether EU5 has genuinely become more beginner-friendly, will be explored further.And who could be better suited to assess the beginner-friendliness of Europa Universalis 5 than “PCGH first-timer” Christopher Barnes?
Our team of specialists,with experience in Age of Wonders 4 (published by Paradox,but not developed by them),and without prior experience with Paradox grand strategy titles,undertook the task of testing Europa Universalis 5 for our PC Games colleagues. After dozens of hours of gameplay, Barnes has gained considerable experience and can detail the entry process into EU5 from a beginner’s perspective, as well as report on how gameplay and automation functions operate. You can find the full test at our sister magazine, PC Games: https://www.pcgames.de/Europa-Universalis-5-Spiel-75214/Tests/EU5-Review-Wertung-Paradox-1485203/.
On the following page, we will address a different challenge: the technical aspects of Europa Universalis 5. How does the game run, and how does it visually compare to it’s direct predecessor and other Paradox titles? What visible and noticeable improvements have been made? Examining a grand strategy title from Paradox graphically and performance-wise is a complex undertaking. We will not be able to examine all possible scenarios, but we will provide some insightful observations, which we will detail on the following page.
