[GS] Civ6 vs. EU4

[Stamson]

Economy is better in EU, trade is better in EU, diplomacy is better in EU and I find the AI much better in EU, but I am not very good at EU, evidently after about 500hrs or so you will think the AI sucks...

Civ has better AI then another game? How is that even possible?

Game developers really need to start prioritizing a better AI. Without it, the replayability of the game goes way down.

 

[tedhebert]

I bought EU4 a few months ago, being in a CIV depression ;-)

Worse purchase I ever made... I have played paradox games before (Stellaris) and I didn't hate it... played for a while and got bored of not having goals I guess...

But EU4, to me, feels like playing an Excel spreadsheet. So many numbers, so much info, so little explanation on what they mean...

Anyways... not a fan

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Since I love Domination through War I feel that I will enjoy EU4 once I get a grasp and into the games.
I am glad to read a few posts stating that it is primarily a War Game.

Thanks again to all who have posted in this thread.
All posts have really helped me in one way or another.

@TheMeInTeam I guess all that Green is what they call "painting the map?"

@tedhebert Thank You for your input.
I welcome the negative as well since my first few hours have been tough to get into EU4.
One of the big problems about going from Civ V and Civ VI to EU4 for me is the aesthetics.
I have only played/replayed an hour or two of tutorials so far.
Being from Civ you really miss the look of the game.
Especially with Gathering Storm and watching volcanoes explode or floods occur.
I admit that Gathering Storm has enhanced the look of the map with mountain chains and other visual aspects.

 

[Basileus Rhomaion]

They are not exactly comparable, they are from different genres with completely different design philosophies. Comparing them as games directly yields no real results. What you can do is to compare specific aspects and how each game handles them. For example, EU4 handles diplomacy and realistic AI behaviour a lot better than Civ games and also has vastly more (and more elaborate) options in regards to alliances, peace agreements, dependencies, trade etc. On the other hand, Civ games have better "flavour" and polish because they handle less civs, so the music, leaders, unique units and buildings etc are a lot more distinct.

To respond to the criticisms of EU4 not going anywhere: The entire idea of grand strategy is meticulous management. The point is not to take radical actions all the time, but also to know when to play it chill and tend to the minute details of handling your realm. On the other hand, "not going anywhere" can happen even if things could in fact move a certain way, but the player himself is less daring. You can have very uneventful games as a lot of the more popular nations if you don't take the initiative yourself. EU4 is ultimately based around the idea of letting you on your own with no defined ultimate goal and see how you'll change history. Civ games are very streamlined and straightforward: you either win (with a very particular set of rules) or you don't; there's no middle ground.

And as for the difficulty: I don't get why EU4 being hard/difficult to understand/complicated is a problem. Investment in learning a game is half the fun (if one wants to take the game more seriously and not just spin up the figurative disc and start playing). The difficulty in EU4 is precisely what makes it so good. This is something I've noticed personally when playing; at first I was not playing ironman and savescummed/used the console a lot just to win constantly, so the game quickly became a borefest. Once I started playing ironman with no such cheating techniques, the game took a completely different turn.

That's not to say EU4 doesn't have its problems: It has a vastly worse DLC policy than Civ, its mechanics tweaking in the last 1-2 years has been pointless at best and abhorrent at worst and the game itself is heading straight into "milking it" territory.

And as a personal note: As someone who values historicity and accuracy in his strategy games, EU4 knocks Civ off its feet (insofar as the historical aspects of the game are involved e.g. in the abilities, the Cvivilopedia etc).. EU4 still has lots of inconsistencies and mistakes, but the portrayal of history and each nation is so much more nuanced and well-researched, that Civ games look like a kids' version of a historical game by comparison. Civ VI has done massive steps in the right direction compared to previous games, but it still trails behind any Paradox game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

And as for the difficulty: I don't get why EU4 being hard/difficult to understand/complicated is a problem. Investment in learning a game is half the fun (if one wants to take the game more seriously and not just spin up the figurative disc and start playing).

While I mostly agree, it's worth pointing out that EU 4 and Civ 6 share the problem of obfuscating or misrepresenting game rules. No matter how complex a game is, the answer to the question about a specific rule in a specific context should be available.

EU 4 has a non-trivial number of cases where the UI lies to the player outright:

Spoiler :

Only fort is capital fort.

Similarly, last night I listened as other players were playing Civ 6 in turncast (I've been doing the DCSS tournament). One player was constructing ships. Ships then disappeared from his build options and he couldn't complete it. Even after several minutes, he had no way to determine why he could no longer build ships. Likely a bug in that case, but this is the same game that also sometimes list units + reasons you can't build but other times doesn't.

These are not acceptable practices and the "difficulty" associated with them is fake. Note that EU 4 devs have ignored multiple proven UI lies that could have been fixed with text editing (IE no mechanic change whatsoever) for years, despite their accurate documentation in bug reports. Civ 6 is marginally better with UI.

Even ignoring obvious bugs/lies, large numbers of unnecessary inputs and poor documentation of rules in-game lead to undue effort to learn Civ 6 and EU 4 alike. I'm calling this for what it is: shoddy. Not quite as disrespectful to customers as EA (provably and proven!) lying to consumers about player attributes in Madden, but still a bad showing for professional development teams. It's not like good UI is a lost art. Some AAA genres and the indy scene still know how. But not TBS/grand strategy apparently.

That's not to say EU4 doesn't have its problems: It has a vastly worse DLC policy than Civ

On the other hand, if you join a game hosted in EU 4, you can play with the host's DLC. Try this in Civ and see what happens. Civ 6 is a lot closer to pay to win in this regard...some people have access to civs that others don't outright. In EU 4 this is impossible.

Agreed on some obviously poor/incoherent changes to gameplay recently and milking though.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Recently I haven't had much time to play any games.
So far I am having a problem with the learning curve in EU4.
I have been playing the Ottoman Empire, Normal Settings.
The pop ups are constant. Usually it is something happening far away.
All in all it has been difficult to grasp.
I am reduced to watching Youtube Videos of how its done.
I have all the DLC content so it seems you have many more choices which gets confusing.
It will be nice once I can get into some sort of flow.
I find the real time pressure difficult coming from the turn based Civ.
I don't like pausing but I find myself in the pause mode for about an hour before I go back to Youtube

 

[ggmoyang]

As others pointed out, they are two different games and can't be really compared. Maybe EU4 is more similar to Civ than Starcraft but well... that's not a good comparison.

EU 4 used to be better in some regards but patch 1.26 and on have gutted it. To put it mildly. I hold active disrespect for several major changes since then. The devs can't even make statements consistent with the reality of what happens in the game regarding them.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I loved the game, have 3.4k hours on steam, did every achievement until 1.26 (285). But didn't played EU4 after that. I just hope devs stop ruining the game.

 

[oninowon]

I found EU4 really hard to get into. I knew coming in, that there would be a huge learning curve but I just felt more frustration than fun in trying to learn the rules. CIV VI has bit of a learning curve (depending on how familiar you are with past CIV games) but I had more fun learning and also there were great visual representation of your actions.

I disagree that the 2 are so different that they can't be compared. They are both grand strategy games that share some 4x aspects. Sure there are differences in their approach and focus but they are not so completely different that they can't be in the same genre and therefore comparable.

 

[Basileus Rhomaion]

While I mostly agree, it's worth pointing out that EU 4 and Civ 6 share the problem of obfuscating or misrepresenting game rules. No matter how complex a game is, the answer to the question about a specific rule in a specific context should be available.

EU 4 has a non-trivial number of cases where the UI lies to the player outright:

Spoiler :

Only fort is capital fort.

True, albeit this is the least of one's concern when trying to learn EU4. I don't think UI lies are what makes up most of EU4's difficulty.

These are not acceptable practices and the "difficulty" associated with them is fake. Note that EU 4 devs have ignored multiple proven UI lies that could have been fixed with text editing (IE no mechanic change whatsoever) for years, despite their accurate documentation in bug reports. Civ 6 is marginally better with UI.

I agree, but as I said, it's not what actually makes EU4 difficult to learn. It makes it comparatively harder, but it's not the primary catalyst.

Even ignoring obvious bugs/lies, large numbers of unnecessary inputs and poor documentation of rules in-game lead to undue effort to learn Civ 6 and EU 4 alike. I'm calling this for what it is: shoddy. Not quite as disrespectful to customers as EA (provably and proven!) lying to consumers about player attributes in Madden, but still a bad showing for professional development teams. It's not like good UI is a lost art. Some AAA genres and the indy scene still know how. But not TBS/grand strategy apparently.

Even with a good and explanatory UI, EU4 would still be a very demanding game in terms of the volume of things needed to be learned. What bad UI does is obscure newcomers and make the initial steps of the learning curve steeper. Even for people who get used to the UI, the complications of the rules and mechanics make it hard to master even with hundred of hours into the game.

That being said, Paradox has a certain ineptitude at making things intuitive. For people who are old enough to have played the older EU games as well, what makes EU4 "easier" on the surface is really just an overall improvement in UI and more manageable general rules. EU4 and CK2 essentially took a step into the "uncanny valley" between bad and good UI design, so they both kind of repelled a lot of their elitist older fans and still make it hard on the newer fans. Still, it's comprehensible enough to have resulted in a meteoric rise in popularity, so they just copied the EU4 design philosophy everywhere instead of evolving it and making it better.

On the other hand, if you join a game hosted in EU 4, you can play with the host's DLC. Try this in Civ and see what happens. Civ 6 is a lot closer to pay to win in this regard...some people have access to civs that others don't outright. In EU 4 this is impossible.

Literally the only thing EU4 has going for it in terms of DLC. Everything else is completely and utterly crap. Overpriced, too little content, often unjustified when most of the changes come in the free patches etc. Especially the "content packs" and the recent trend of "immersion packs" is truly the apogee of Paradox's abysmal DLC policy. This is why when people accuse Firaxis of being too scummy with their DLCs my first instinct is to sarcastically smirk.

I disagree that the 2 are so different that they can't be compared. They are both grand strategy games that share some 4x aspects. Sure there are differences in their approach and focus but they are not so completely different that they can't be in the same genre and therefore comparable.

Grand strategy and 4X are not terms to be interpreted at face value. "Grand strategy" doesn't just mean "it's a strategy game and it'd grand in scope" and "4X" doesn't just include every game that qualifies for the name (explore, exploit, exterminate, expand). The genres since their start developed characteristics very particular to them which make them distinct and thus not interchangeable. You could never mistake a game like EU4 or CK2 for Civ VI or Endless Legend, for example, much like you wouldn't confuse Civ VI with Age of Empires, even though it's still a strategy game where you "explore, exploit, exterminate and expand".

It's sort of like the case with Skyrim: It's first person and you can technically shoot people with arrows and spells, but you wouldn't call it a "first person shooter".

 

[Bibor]

Civ6 with all content costs over 140€, EU4 251€. Prices are getting crazy.

The cheapest way to play Civ6 right now is to watch streamers & youtubers, and that's what I've been doing, because there's no way in hell I'm "donating" 140€ for a computer game.

 

[oninowon]

Civ6 with all content costs over 140€, EU4 251€. Prices are getting crazy.

The cheapest way to play Civ6 right now is to watch streamers & youtubers, and that's what I've been doing, because there's no way in hell I'm "donating" 140€ for a computer game.

The other option is to wait for the inevitable complete edition of either game.

 

[oninowon]

Grand strategy and 4X are not terms to be interpreted at face value. "Grand strategy" doesn't just mean "it's a strategy game and it'd grand in scope" and "4X" doesn't just include every game that qualifies for the name (explore, exploit, exterminate, expand). The genres since their start developed characteristics very particular to them which make them distinct and thus not interchangeable. You could never mistake a game like EU4 or CK2 for Civ VI or Endless Legend, for example, much like you wouldn't confuse Civ VI with Age of Empires, even though it's still a strategy game where you "explore, exploit, exterminate and expand".

It's sort of like the case with Skyrim: It's first person and you can technically shoot people with arrows and spells, but you wouldn't call it a "first person shooter".

Like I said before, there are differences, yes, but enough similarities to be put into the same genre. Your example of Skyrim is pretty weak because nobody would even think of Skyrim as a FPS game. If someone asked "what strategy game (or 4x game) should I get?" I guarantee that a lot of repliers would lump CIV and EU together. As for the terminology, "grand strategy" and "4x", they are just some of the traits used to define a game but they are not the end all terminology to describe a game. EU, CK, CIV, and AoE are all considered 4x games (never played EL). However, there are enough dissimilar traits among the group to be able to compare and contrast. For example, playing CK like you would CIV, would lead to disaster because the focus between the 2 are different.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

True, albeit this is the least of one's concern when trying to learn EU4. I don't think UI lies are what makes up most of EU4's difficulty.

It's more damaging than people suspect. When a player gets this kind of outcome, trust in anything the game says is fairly questioned. You're correct that the basic lacking of "how does this work" is the larger issue, however. A fun example is asking a new player to figure out forts just by in-game descriptions or experience.

I agree that even if the UI were perfect it would still be a complex game.

This is why when people accuse Firaxis of being too scummy with their DLCs my first instinct is to sarcastically smirk.

Which is worse is debatable. Still, two wrongs don't make a right, and not all game genres are this bad.

 

[Melliores]

@ Bibor -Before the launch of Gathering Storm there were some pretty good discounts for the Gold edition of Civ 6 (all DLC + Rise and Fall). You could get that at around 30-33 Euro, probably less if you shop around. Gathering storm was around 31,50 on Greenman Gaming. You could possibly go lower if you got some ticket from them.

So basically you could get the full game at around 65 EUR, which about 43% of your original price of 140 EUR. Now, whether you have the patience to wait for a sale and the disposable income is another topic.

 

[Basileus Rhomaion]

nobody would even think of Skyrim as a FPS game.

That was the point. If you don't like the Skyrim paradigm, swap it with Fallout 3 or System Shock 2. They are technically "first person shooters" in that you are playing in first person and shooting stuff, but you wouldn't call them FPS games because they don't share the general design philosophy and characteristics that FPS games generally have.

If someone asked "what strategy game (or 4x game) should I get?" I guarantee that a lot of repliers would lump CIV and EU together.

I have been playing EU4 for over 5 years and I have never come across anyone that lumps Civ VI with EU4 together in any context pertaining to their gameplay.

As for the terminology, "grand strategy" and "4x", they are just some of the traits used to define a game but they are not the end all terminology to describe a game.

Nobody claims that a simple genre tag is describing a game rigorously, but they are helpful markers to tip someone on how similar or dissimilar a game is from another. If you lump Civ with EU4 together, while at the same time lumping up Civ with categorically more similar games like Endless Legend, you are defeating the entire purpose for why genres were ever defined to begin with.

EU, CK, CIV, and AoE are all considered 4x games

They aren't, really. I don't know whom you have seen that they believe this, but I have never come across anyone claiming EU4, let alone AoE, is a 4X game.

However, there are enough dissimilar traits among the group to be able to compare and contrast.

Which is the entire point of defining genres: Convenience of categorization based on mutual similarity.

For example, playing CK like you would CIV, would lead to disaster because the focus between the 2 are different.

It's not a matter of game strategy, it's a matter of mechanics, rules and fundamentals. CK2 and Civ VI are so vastly different as a whole, that even if you wanted to follow a similar playstyle from one to the other, you would simply be physically incapable of doing that.

Which is worse is debatable. Still, two wrongs don't make a right, and not all game genres are this bad.

As someone who has bought a crapton from both camps, it's very clear to me who's worse. Anyone is free to disagree of course, but I'm more or less convinced that Paradox is categorically handling their DLCs worse; perhaps even among the worst in general.

And yes, two wrongs don't make a right, obviously. I'm just saying that Civ VI is tame by comparison, so people's exacerbation triggers that "if only you knew" sort of reaction from me.

 

[Equilin]

i only got eu4 for less than a year and i'm dropping it for now (in favor of Civ6 because of modding accessibility), not because it's "too difficult" but because every game is more or less the same. For example, let's give 10 or 20 roughly-described scenarios, and each game is gonna fall into one of these after 100 games. It also has some serious unfixed bugs/exploits/crappy mechanics that allows players to conquer the world starting in 1650, and most games will be played the same after entering the second half (and that only counts games that enter the second half, which is not much). Big mods like Extended Timeline are nice to play though (even if saves will definitely break before i get to do a thing).

Civ has more stuff going on despite being shorter, depends on victory condition and chosen playstyle (which is affected by chosen civ) After the build-up phase you will try to reach victory condition as fast/stylish/funny/memetic as possible, and that does not always involve killing people, and again easy modding helps a ton.

 

[oninowon]

...

Dude you are no longer making sense and I feel you are just arguing for arguing sake. Either that or you are such a fan boy of EU that you refuse to call it a strategy 4x game. Go ahead and google 4x games and you will see EU listed along side CIV. Dig deeper and you will see people actually compare and contrast EU and CIV together since both share the same genre. So yes, both can be compared with each other and a whole lot of people have done just that.

Moderator Action: Calling someone a "fan boy" is considered trolling on this forum. Please find another way to express your point. leif

i only got eu4 for less than a year and i'm dropping it for now (in favor of Civ6 because of modding accessibility), not because it's "too difficult" but because every game is more or less the same. For example, let's give 10 or 20 roughly-described scenarios, and each game is gonna fall into one of these after 100 games. It also has some serious unfixed bugs/exploits/crappy mechanics that allows players to conquer the world starting in 1650, and most games will be played the same after entering the second half (and that only counts games that enter the second half, which is not much). Big mods like Extended Timeline are nice to play though (even if saves will definitely break before i get to do a thing).

Civ has more stuff going on despite being shorter, depends on victory condition and chosen playstyle (which is affected by chosen civ) After the build-up phase you will try to reach victory condition as fast/stylish/funny/memetic as possible, and that does not always involve killing people, and again easy modding helps a ton.

What you have said about EU, you can say the same about CIV. After playing CIV a hundred times or so, each game can feel the same also. I know I fall into a certain habit, depending on the victory condition I'm going for. CIV IV was like that to me. This was one of the reasons why I got bored with CIV IV after playing it so many times.

On a different note, your complaint of events in EU reminded me of someone also complaining of events but for a different reason. I don't recall whether it was 3 or 4 but certain events were so fixed that no matter what you did, the event would occur and do its intended harm (no matter how prepared you were). For example, you could be playing Spain and have a very good economy going only to be inexplicably undone due to some in game event that followed the event in Spain in real life (note that I don't recall if it was Spain).

 

[Basileus Rhomaion]

Dude you are no longer making sense and I feel you are just arguing for arguing sake.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but that's unfair to both my intentions and my actual points.

Either that or you are such a fan boy of EU that you refuse to call it a strategy 4x game.

Well, I'm not a fanboy (at least I wouldn't consider myself as one), but even if I was, your accusation makes no sense. There's nothing inherently inferior about 4X games and I play a bunch of them, including Civ games. To refuse calling a game 4X on the basis of liking it too much is a non sequitur.

Go ahead and google 4x games and you will see EU listed along side CIV.

I have, actually. Perhaps you'd like to hear what people on the Paradox forums have to say on the matter as well.

Of course, EU4 and Civ are just one part of the equation, since you also lumped in AoE as well, which is even more remote from the 4X genre.

Dig deeper and you will see people actually compare and contrast EU and CIV together since both share the same genre.

You can contrast them even if they are not in the same genre (as I've said, you can still compare individual aspects which are shared), just not as a whole. For example, you can say that EU4 is better at what it does than Civ VI, but I wouldn't necessarily call EU4 an overall better game, since Civ VI fulfills a different niche and is better at the aspects it focuses on.

 

[Tinker]

They're completely different genres and aren't served well by comparing them because it tends to not really go anywhere. The main thing they have in common is the history flavour, but Civ is closer to something like Advance Wars than EU4.

4x isn't a base description of gameplay, it's a vague catch-all for games where you take over the world through exploring and taking land - it's like "top-down" or "third-person" or "adventure", not something that stands on its own. Civ as a series is turn-based strategy, where EU as a series is grand strategy. No-one would think to compare Civ or EU to something like Starcraft but apparently the superficial history flavour is enough for it to go into endless fruitless comparisons.

 

[playshogi]

The other option is to wait for the inevitable complete edition of either game.

Paradox makes "complete" editions and then continues to add DLC anyway.