The Shape of Things to Come

Europa Universalis IV

Paradox Interactive, 2013We can blame Washington Irving, that infamous folk fabulist, for one of the most pervasive myths around Christopher Columbus’ famous voyage in 1492. It is in his 1848 biography of Columbus that Irving espoused the now-commonplace wisdom that the Portuguese adventurer alone dared to believe the Earth was round when most of his medieval contemporaries were convinced of its flatness. In truth, the world’s spherical nature was understood as early as 200 BC; the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes, the man who coined the word ‘geography’, had even made a very good estimate as to its circumference, with a margin of error as small as 1.6%.The roundness of the Earth was, thus, a well established fact amongst the educated set in medieval Europe; they’d read all about it in their monastic transcriptions of Aristotle. If anything, Columbus was startlingly wrong about his view of the Earth’s proportions. In spite of Eratosthenes’ estimate, Columbus believed the Earth was rather smaller than was generally accepted; he hoped to zip across the breadth of the Atlantic and establish a direct line of trade to Asia before he and his men died of dehydration. By all rights Columbus should have perished in the wine-dark expanse that most learned Europeans believed lay between the western edge of their continent and the distant lands of China. It was by literal dumb luck that Columbus happened to bump into a landmass, one which he went ahead and called ‘India’; it remains unclear to this day whether or not Columbus understood that he had found a continent wholly distinct from the one he had sought.The oblique truth of Irving’s myth lies in the fact that Columbus’ voyage did, indeed, signal a profound shift in the geographical conception of the world; that which the medieval Europeans did not know was the very same thing Columbus didn’t foresee, yet discovered (more or less) all the same: that a New World lay across the Atlantic, its presumed-virgin lands ready for settlement, an escape from a crowded and conflict-riven Europe.Paradox Interactive’s newest release, the grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV, provides a detailed simulation of the world as the consequences of this shift play out: exploration, colonization and exploitation - processes which lead, as the name suggests, to a near-universal European predominance, the putative victory of guns, germs and steel. Developed with the same software engine and in the same spirit as Paradox Interactive’s surprise hit Crusader Kings II (CK2) - a game which challenged players to forge a medieval dynasty spanning centuries - Europa Universalis IV (EU4) allows gamers to assume control of almost any historically recorded state entity that existed between 1444 AD (the Fall of Constantinople) and 1821 AD (the death of Napoleon), dates which bookend the game’s simulated history.

I am a huge fan of CK2 as my 360+ hours of playtime must attest, so it was a matter of utmost necessity that I purchase EU4 the day it was released. Though appearing similar at first glance, with both games’ main menus presenting the player with a map of Europe, the differences appear as soon as the game-proper begins. Foremost is that which Columbus’ accidental discovery entails; whereas the playable world of CK2 is confined to Europe and its immediate neighbors - the boundaries, more or less, of the old Roman Empire - EU4 makes the entire terrestrial globe available.Not that all these nations are created equal. Each falls within a technological grouping - Western, Eastern, Muslim, Chinese, New World, etc. - that hampers technological progress to some degree. Thus a nation in the Chinese tech group - Japan, for instance - must invest 60% more tech ‘points’, and a New World nation - the Inca or the Iroquois - suffer from a crippling 150% increase. The only nations to suffer no penalty are those lucky enough to fall into the Western tech group, a slant which is meant to simulate the asymmetrical advance of technology during this time period. It is a brave player who hopes to lead a non-European nation to more than regional victory, though it is a far from impossible feat, and more technically savvy players can tweak the game’s code to remove or reverse these biases. Thus it is entirely possible to launch an Aztec invasion of the Spanish mainland, playing out a much-deserved revenge fantasy.EU4 can be grouped with a genre of games known as 4X, a moniker derived from four central gameplay tenants: exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination. The game’s internal logic more or less demand a player participating in at least one or two of these eXes; one could feasibly play as Tuscany, and focus on developing the aesthetic achievements of the Renaissance, but it may prove a dull playthrough, one which employs only a few of EU4’s numerous game mechanics. After all, there are vast swathes of terra incognita begging to be charted, and the new lands thus discovered are too appetizing a prize not to snap up, particularly since your neighboring rivals will be racing to get there first.It also qualifies as a ‘grand strategy game,’ a genre defined by scale, complexity and - more often than not - duration. As previously mentioned, a full game of EU4 spans the better part of four centuries, and will doubtless take days of real time to complete. Indeed, grand strategy games closely resemble the head-bustingly baroque Avalon Hill board games of yore, titles like ‘Across Five Aprils’ and ‘Kingmaker,’ albeit without the hour-long setups, squint-inducing rulebook consultations and entire surfaces reserved for future play should the game not end before the evening wears thin; the software takes care of all that for you. Still, EU4 will invariably take some time to comprehend fully, containing as it does more game mechanics than even a single playthrough will allow you to use, let alone fully understand. This fact makes the game very replayable, if somewhat overwhelming at first glance.Players have at their disposal a variety of agents like diplomats, traders, colonists and missionaries, who can be assigned to specific provinces with specific goals: increase your diplomatic reputation with a neighbor, collect tariffs from a center of trade, settle new territory or proselytize heathens and heretics. There are also advisors - administrative, diplomatic and military - who generate ‘points’ useful for the institution of policies and the development of technologies, crucial to staying apace in a quickly-developing world. The same points can be spent on ‘national ideas’, a progressive string of associated bonuses which better define your strategy. The ‘Exploration’ idea progression gives your nation access to explorers and conquistadors, capable of uncovering new land, as well as better methods of colonization. The ‘Economics’ idea progression helps to reduce inflation and boost the production of goods for sale on the global market. There are also nationally distinct ideas, geared towards the historical tendencies of a given country. Spain’s missionaries become more effective due to the ‘Spanish Inquisition’ idea, and their heavy ships become more powerful due to ‘Spanish Armada’ idea. In this way, any nation may take almost any path, though skillful play usually involves carefully gauging which ideas will be most useful given your geographical and historical placement. A landlocked nation like Austria gains little from investing heavily in Naval ideas, but Diplomatic ideas could mean the difference between predominance and oblivion as great military alliances begin to form and your neighbors dream of continental conquest.You’ll notice that EU is a 4, just as CK is a 2; they are only the most recent iterations of earlier grand strategy titles which Paradox has regularly revised and improved over the years. Their stable of historical simulations stretch even further forward and back in time: the Victoria series allows one to play in the post-Napoleonic world of industrialization and revolution, and the Hearts of Iron series can take you as far as 1952, with a focus on the military excesses of World War II. One of my personal favorites is Rome: Vae Victus, which simulates the politics and power struggles of Europe’s antiquity, starting with Rome’s war with Epirus and ending with Augustus’ ascent to Imperium. But CK2 and EU4 are the most polished of their titles to date, the culmination of Paradox’s intention to make their often very dense and difficult games more accessible.Thankfully their method has not to been to make their games simpler, for that would rob the games of their essential beauty, one which is inseparable from complexity. Rather, they’ve aimed to make these complexities more transparent and easily controlled. Learning to play a Paradox grand strategy title can be a daunting experience but, once mastered, they allow a player to reshape history in profound ways. Indeed, the chief pleasure of the game is not merely the ability to acquire great global power - this is an opportunity really only afforded to a handful of well-positioned nations like Spain, France or Great Britain - but rather to generate a unique historical narrative, whichever nation you opt to play as.For, after the game’s initial setup, history cannot be relied upon to repeat itself with any exactitude. Playing as Castille, cursed with a truly incompetent monarch, I found myself in the unfortunate position of being the junior member of a royal union with England, and thus subordinate to the British crown. I was forced to fight a war of independence which you’ll never read about in the textbooks from our timeline. My revolutionary leader, King Enrique I, was one of the foremost military geniuses of his time, but - having sired no children - was forced to adopt a child he found, Moses-like, amongst the reeds of a river, a decision that lead to some nobles taking up arms in rebellious protest. The upstarts were summarily crushed, but this internal division made the following border war with France a long and difficult campaign which ended with both our nations exhausted, our reserves of manpower tapped. Luckily, it was shortly after the truce was signed that my fleet of barques sighted the coast of South America, providing an opportunity for expansion that would not force me to butt heads with well-armed Muslim nations across the Straits of Gibraltar.As Adam Smith at Rock, Paper Shotgun points out, EU4 and CK2 are as much narrative generators as they are strategy games, and it is the type of narrative each produces that truly demonstrates the essential differences between the worlds they envision. The stories CK2 weaves are typically G. R. R. Martin-esque epics of ambition and intrigue, dramas of the so-called Dark Ages, played on a stage which is strictly bordered by a proscenium of terra incognita. Within this world kin plot against kin, inheritance schemes dominate political life, and questions of a dynasty’s legacy are paramount. EU4’s stories, on the other hand, are those of state actors, the tragedies and farces of powers and peoples all trying to keep their balance while clawing to the top of the newly-spherical world, perching precariously on a swiftly tilting planet.Because, if the world’s roundness was theoretically understood before Columbus’ voyage, the practical implications of that roundness only came into play once nations were capable of circumnavigation. It is a global world that is emerging in this era, and, as a result, it is impossible to play EU4 without a certain eye-straining peer towards the future that is our own. As the years rolled onwards, I found myself scrambling as if late to an appointment with destiny; when there was no Christopher Columbus, I found it necessary to create him. When my explorers set sail, they looked for land masses I already knew were there. Difference and divergence are what make the game interesting, but the shape of things to come cannot but begin to appear, due to both the rules of the game and the player’s own self-fulfilling prophecies.I stumbled into some of these destinies, as per the law of unintended consequences. A particularly lush piece of land may house particularly aggressive native inhabitants, and the demands of colonial expansion almost invariably lead to some degree of military suppression. Even if colonizing efforts are light-handed, diseases will rampage; no amount of good will and kind intentions can stop the spread of smallpox. These are the costs of competition with other state actors, all scrambling to stake their claim on the world, all of it lately rendered New.Africa is one of the earliest options for colonization, being just a quick trip south of the Iberian peninsula instead of all the way across the Atlantic. As Castille, my chief colonial rival was Portugal and there was no way I was about to let them have the Gold Coast all to themselves - soon boats full of Catalan colonists were on their way to plots south of Mali. The resource yield of an unsettled province is hidden from view for the first few months of colonization, so I waited, wondering what new prize I’d be able to bring to the markets in the motherland. The question mark resolved into the image of an iron shackle: I’d just gained access to slaves, a valuable commodity indeed, all the more so when my Caribbean plantations began to expand.Moments such as these can alienate you from the game you are playing, and this is for the best. Myths such as the one Washington Irving wove around Columbus remain pervasive and pernicious to this day, and while they can contain within themselves some splinter of truth, they are - more often than not - founded in comforting illusions, beliefs in history as necessary, progressive, and inalterable. By presenting history as a process of divergent choices within a field of possibility, a game like EU4 can beg the question as to what is truly inevitable and what, given the right perspective, might be recast, refigured, or even redeemed, as well as what horrors of history must not be repeated.____Phillip Lobo is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. His previous video game reviews for Open Letters can be found here.