Europa Universalis IV is a great game for anyone who loves strategy games that are less about quick battles and more about building a global empire over hundreds of years. The game gives you control of any nation on Earth, starting in 1444, and challenges you to guide it through four distinct centuries, all the way to 1821. It's an actual historical sandbox where you can rewrite history in any way you see fit.
In a nutshell, Europa Universalis IV simulates an entire nation, not just its army, so you're not just moving troops around a map. The gameplay requires you to manage every single aspect of your country, like handling diplomacy with other nations, building a trade network to make your nation rich, exploring and colonizing the New World, managing the internal politics and religion of your people, and, of course, waging epic wars that can span entire continents. To succeed, you need to be good at long-term planning, where a decision you make in the 15th century could have enormous consequences hundreds of years later.
Famous for its complexity and nearly endless replayability, Europa Universalis IV allows you to play hundreds of nations, each with its own unique starting position, missions, and advantages. The nation you choose and your decisions determine what happens in the game, so no two campaigns ever feel the same. Even though it takes a while to learn the game, once you do, it offers one of the most rewarding and immersive strategy experiences available on the market. You can download Europa Universalis IV on computers with Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Why should I download Europa Universalis IV?
Europa Universalis IV offers you the freedom to rewrite history however you like, so you start by choosing to play as any nation that existed in 1444, from the major powers of Europe like England or France, to a small Japanese daimyo, a Native American tribe, or an African kingdom. From there, the path you take is entirely up to you. Will you unite Japan and colonize California? Will you transform the Roman Empire into Byzantium? Or will you build a massive trade empire like Venice? Europa Universalis IV gives you truly endless possibilities.
At the heart of Europa Universalis IV is a deep and complex diplomacy system, where war is only one of the tools at your disposal. During the game, you can forge alliances, arrange royal marriages to secure your dynasty, create vassal states, send insults, and form massive coalitions to defeat a common enemy. A well-timed alliance or a clever diplomatic maneuver can be far more powerful than the largest army, making international relations a constant and engaging puzzle to solve.
In Europa Universalis IV, you're able to explore and colonize a dynamic New World as the game progresses through the Age of Discovery. You can send your explorers out into the unknown parts of the world, where the Americas, Africa, and Asia are hidden at the start, and you can try to uncover them with time. You then send your colonists to establish new settlements, creating vast colonial empires that will send valuable goods and riches back to your homeland. But be careful, as your colonial subjects might eventually desire independence, and you may need to engage in a war with them.
Basically, in Europa Universalis IV, you also need to manage every aspect of your nation's internal politics. You need to care for your nation's stability, deal with peasant rebellions, and choose which "idea groups" to invest in to shape your nation's strengths. Will you focus on military ideas to create an unstoppable army, or will you invest in trade ideas to become an economic powerhouse? You also have to manage the administrative, diplomatic, and military aspects, as these are the key areas you get to govern.
Since its release, Europa Universalis IV has received a massive amount of post-launch support in the form of numerous paid DLC expansions. Each of these expansions has added new mechanics and regions of the world, from Europe and Asia to Africa and the Americas. The game is available only on computers but works on any operating system, whether it's Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Is Europa Universalis IV free?
No, Europa Universalis IV is a paid title, so you need to buy it to play the base game. There are also multiple DLCs that have been released over many years, so you can expand your game by buying them.
What operating systems are compatible with Europa Universalis IV?
You can download and play Europa Universalis IV on computers running Windows 10 and 11, macOS 10.15 or newer, and multiple Linux distributions. There are no official versions of the game for any consoles, like PlayStation or Xbox, or for mobile devices.
What are the alternatives to Europa Universalis IV?
Age of Empires IV is a real-time strategy where the entire gameplay doesn't happen in turns but continuously, so you need to constantly be in action and gather resources, build up settlements and wind, train your army, and defeat opponents. Each of the civilizations available in the game has decisively different qualities, so they don't seem like the same unit, but just with different graphics. Economic management, technological advancement, and military tactics are the focal points of the game, and you can buy Age of Empires IV for Windows PCs and Xbox consoles.
Sid Meier's Civilization VI is a turn-based strategy title that works on Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch gaming consoles. In this game, you get to lead civilizations starting from the Stone Age all the way to the Information Age, and you need to control such aspects as culture, science, military, and city development. Civilization VI involves making a lot of macro decisions and engaging in diplomacy with other factions, and it's a paid game that also offers a lot of expansion packs and DLC content.
0 A.D. Empires Ascendant is an open-source real-time strategy game that you can play for free, and it takes you to the times of ancient civilizations like the Romans, Persians, and Greeks. The core game mechanics resemble those from the Age of Empires series, meaning you need to focus on building bases, gathering and managing resources, and participating in real-time battles. The game is in active development, and you can play it on computers with Windows, macOS, and Linux.
