EU4 or CK2? Which game you think is it better to invest (scarse) free time into? I have played EU3 for a reatively long time (my greatest achievement was establishing the Indostan state over the whole India) and now I'm sampling the 4th incarnation, but I want to experience something new in Paradox games. I have started getting into CK2 today as well, and I'm afraid it's going to take quite some time to comprehense merely the basics (everything seems soo different from the EU series). (sorry for offtopic)
CK2 gets my vote as the more interesting of the two, as EU4 just does not have the same character depth as CK2. Whilst EU4 is a very nice, calm and even borderline casual (once you understand the mechanics... That have been released) it turns into a game of patient map painting. Not to say that it is slow or unchallenging, as it can be very fast paced and incredibly difficult at times. Much more fun in multiplayer dicking over your m8s on the international stage. And really, sometimes all you want is an exercise in patience ;P
But whilst things are more set in stone in EU4, CK2 is much, much more dynamic and the much more complete of the two (with or without factoring in DLC). The lack of naval battles I feel is incredibly shit, but just about everything else in CK2 is perfect.
EU4 is about the age of Imperialism, where national darwinism and constant growth meant nations which dominated survived and nations which didn't perished. CK2 is about the wheel of fortune and how a pauper today is an Emperor tomorrow, and an Emperor today a pauper tomorrow. The interactions between the people are the focus and their stories the central point of it all.
I'll give you a comparison between two average games of EU4 and CK2 I've had.
In EU4 I started off as the Kingdom of England. I surrendered the French lands to the French, ending the hundred years war. I colonized North America and crushed the American revolution, annexed the Irish Kingdoms and united with Scotland. I placed the Lancasters upon the throne in the war of the roses, gained a foothold in Central America, the Caribbean, the Indian Subcontinent and even Australia - essentially the proto-British Empire of the 19th century, minus the Cape of Africa (which belonged to Portugal, a stalwart ally). In the religious league wars the English joined the Catholic side as they too were Catholic, and the Austrians ever victorious cemented their position as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and ended Ottoman ambitions for expansion beyond Serbia and Bulgaria. The game would culminate in a showdown between Revolutionary France, Austria, Russia, Tuscany, the Ottomans and Great Britain where France would force the surrender of all of Britain's allies until the war turned into the contest between the Whale and the Elephant, neither one capable of truly challenging the other outside its element. With a relentless blockade unable to be broken even by the most valiant efforts of the French navy, eventually the French Rev Republic was too exhausted to fight and was crushed - ushering in the age of pax Britannica.
In CK2 I started off as a Christian count (I forgot all of their names as this was an average game) on the wrong side of the Holy Lands to an irate Emir who desired my lands. My wife was a Sunni Arab who was not particularly fond of me but eventually grew to fall in love with me, so much so that she stopped sending assassins after our children. My Lord the Emir of Bagdhad grudgingly accepted I was a talented commander and appointed me martial of his forces. All around me great things were happening, the Vikings were making their forays into raiding, the Franks had defeated the Andalusian invasion of France, the Caliphate and the Byzantines were waging bitter war - it all mattered for nought. I was busy partying with the sole Muslim in a Baghdad court decadent enough to drink!
This Emir would however grow ever increasingly hostile to me as time went on, and I waged a war of independence upon him in order to serve the Caliph directly. Being the Marshal of his forces helped considerably, and I had timed the war to coincide with his invasion of one of his rival Emirs - between his rival and my forces, the war was won. The Caliph recognized my skill and made me marshal of the whole Caliphate and commander of the centre; the Caliph was quite happy with me after I led the Caliphate's forces to victory against the Byzantine Empire's attempt to reclaim the levant. This war had very little impact on me despite being a world-changing event, and after some political concessions were forced from the Caliph I found myself back under the suzerainty of an even angrier Emir of Bagdhad. Things were looking to be once more horrendous.
After scheming with some help from my decadent friend (who just so happened to inherit a county within the Emirate with help from myself) a second war was launched and I gained control of the Bagdhad Emirate, elevating myself to ruler of the Emirate and the former Emir reduced to a Sheikh (who was promptly murdered in a Zoroastrian riot, his lands subsequently conquered by me). My decadent friend (now a decadent sheikh) was made my right hand man and I was in turn once more promoted to Marshal and Commander of the Caliphate - just in time to lead the Muslim armies in the First Crusade. After the first Caliph I had served died of old age, a second younger and more martial Caliph took charge (whilst the Crusade was still ongoing). He still looked favourably on me, but had noticeably demoted me from commander of the centre to commander of the right flank. The Crusaders would be defeated but truthfully, it mattered not either way whether we won or not - only if I made it home did it matter.
I made it home and all hell broke loose, the Caliph was victorious but the Caliphate had descended into civil war. The Sultan of Egypt, the Emirs of Persia and the Caliph with his loyalists in the Levant and Arabia all fought viciously, I stayed mostly in the sidelines, running the logistics of the Caliph and helping reinforcements get to the front line. The only time I saw battle was when a hostile Emir tried laying siege to one of my towns.
The second Caliph I served was eventually removed from power and Egypt became an independent Sultanate. The third Caliph was a zealous Sunni convert from Persia, the son of a former Zoroastrian nobleman. He did not like me for my heathen ways, nor did he like how close I had been to the previous Caliph. I gave him my two daughters for reeducation, knowing that they in their old age and their stubborn cynical ways would probably tell his teachers to suck on some figs. But my son on the other hand... He was a hard working, trusting and studious infant. He did not possess his sisters' perception for how things were. I had to refuse his reeducation into a bedouin nobleman.
This pissed off the third Caliph immensely. Before long the Caliph was caught between the decision of invading Egypt or invading Bagdhad. I began gathering friends fast, aware that soon I would die of old age or assassin blades and Bagdhad would be left in the hands of a trusting boy. My coalition of a Christian, a decadent Muslim, the last Zoroastrian, a Khawarjite heretic and the Emir whose 1st and 2nd wife had cheated on him with the Caliph fought hard and long and won - securing independence just in time for the Sultan of Egypt to capture the Caliphate's capital. After my death the coalition would unite behind my son, by then an able commander holding together a loose federation of Catholics, Sunni heretics, Sunnis, Assassins and a smidgen of Buddhists. The only ones who left were the Zoroastrians, who were granted independence as their Duke was violently opposed to rule from anywhere except home.
Those are the average games for me. The exceptional ones I can think off the top of my head in EU4:
- Using the extended timeline mod to play as Nepal and over the course of 600 years outlive Rome, unite India, revive the Han, bring back Rome and lose my colonial Empire after a government oversight led to a third of my Empire converting to Islam
- Playing as the Knights of Rhodes surrounded by hostile states, raiding the Mamluks for gold and desperately trying to stay alive. Managed to raid my way around Africa and land a single colony in modern day Colombia just days before my fleet was destroyed, my African territories lost to Mali and my North African territories lost to Spain. I had gained Malta and lost it to the Mamluks and Rhodes herself was barely holding on.
The colony succeeded and for a tense few decades the Knights of Rhodes expanded through central America and the Caribbean. With the conquering of the Incans became a great power and all those who had turned Rhodes to ruins suddenly had reason to fear the sunset invasion. The Knights were back, and not to negotiate.
Whilst in CK2:
Over the longest campaign possible from the Old Gods Start to the very end the Miroslav dynasty expanded (I was operating under the self-imposed restriction of no expansion through conquest for a long while) and kept expanding, fighting shadow wars behind overt wars, playing off Crusader Knights against Byzantines, Byzantine Queens against Byzantine Empresses, Shiite Caliphs against Byzantine Baselieuses against Sunni Caliphs, fighting dynastic wars of intrigue against Karlings, Isauros and growing so potent as to even make the Mongol invaders into Miroslavs. By the end of that run there had been 21,000 confirmed Miroslavs and
everyone alive had a Miroslav as their common ancestor, from the farthest reaches of Timbuktu or Reykjavik to Calcutta. All the world religions were controlled by Miroslavs, all the banks controlled by Miroslavs, the holy orders controlled by Miroslavs, every level of government from the lowest to highest controlled by Miroslavs and the dynastic management was intense. And every single time I was always hanging on by the razor's edge of survival and it was intense. It was only made all the better by conversion funnily enough, to EU4 - managing the dynasty took a different light with the far more powerful EU4 armies and navies raising the cost of war, or made better with the use of mods. Still, I don't think I'll ever top the invasion of the Game of Thrones world:
No. Fucking Words.
You used the fucking world-ending demonic ice zombie hordes as a tool against your personal enemies, invaded the entire planet, and then polished it off by watching as three hundred thousand fucking aztecs landed in the heart of Winter with a dozen dragons, drove back the zombie hordes, and re-established the barrier of men against the wastes you previously let slip.
And then, of all things, the sheer charisma of the aztechs persuaded the White Walkers to take over the duties of the Night's Watch. This is where you've sunk to. You are the bad guy. The aztecs are slitting throats, skinning people, and ripping out hearts, and you're the bad guy. The ice demons of the endless northern wastes are guarding the Wall from themselves and you're the bad guy. The great slavery empires of the East have been overthrown under wave of screaming tribesmen, and you're the bad guy. Winter has become a formal fucking procedure and you're the bad guy.
When you play the game of thrones, you win, or the serbians come.
EU4 does not have the same potential to go... Completely... Off... The same way. On a thematic note I don't want EU4 to have the same character depth as CK2, I think it's quite appropriate that the Imperialism simulator has more concern for the tea trade than the people drinking it, but CK2 does have it and it uses it perfectly (in a very DF style, leave the notes and let your mind connect them to make music). If EU4 had better peacetime mechanics to deal with infrastructure development, client/ally management and technological/social progress control/guidance it could perhaps compete by doing what EU4 does better than what CK2 does in regards to what CK2 does best. I haven't tried the Cossacks or Common Sense DLCs in EU4 which deal with some of those, which may explain that a bit. The trade system could also use some dynamism to help history develop on non-linear paths (that surprise you! You will only once in your life see the invincible ring of Portugal) and the culture and religion spread system are inferior to both CK2 and VIC2 (VIC2 doing it fantastically with population tracking, migration, assimilation and CK2 doing it well with it all happening through layers of nobles, courtiers and commoners), also failing to accurately represent how culture and religion spread through the age of Exploration and early Imperialism. The monarch points system itself is quite painful, overextension seems quite forced (compare CK2 and EU4's ideas of overextension, where in CK2 there is no number that decides you are overextended too much. It's a personal judgement that if you refuse to make will eventually result in your Empire growing too large to administrate properly, crush all revolts and stop vassals breaking away - resulting in a natural collapse, versus EU4's "you go over 100% you die," which really slows down the aggressive Imperialism the game models (at least until client states are unlocked)). Without even addressing the cost of DLCs... CK2 offers more. On a technical basis EU4 runs smoother and its saves are much smaller which may be of concern to you, as after a while CK2 games can slow down (so games lasting several centuries are not advised except in really special games).
When it comes to investing scarce time, I would actually say go for EU4. CK2 and EU4 both have a wealth of mechanics to learn, but EU4's are definitely simpler and more abstracted, something which it achieves very well (perhaps too well :
D). EU4 will give you all the fun you want and is solid in its own right, and a brilliant banter machine slightly less vehement against friends than Monopoly. But it's like this, if you have more time, just as investing time to learn DF makes Fun, investing time to learn CK2 makes Fun.
Author
Topic: Europa Universalis IV (Read 467012 times)