So, I really need to stop playing Europa Universalis 4 right now, but I'm still thinking about it, so... What better way to get it out of my system than to type about it?!

No?

WELL WHATEVER.

I'm going to write a review pretty soon I think? I mean I do want to get to the end date on a converted save and one on a regular save. I'm thinking the regular save should be one of the Japanese Daimyos...

but let's get started!

Okay, so this is my converted save from Crusader Kings 2. This was a preorder DLC taht you got for CK2 for preordering EU4 that would convert your save game from that game and put it in this one. Pretty self explanatory. I started as the tribe of Tavastians (because they had the best province in Finland) (aka the one with Helsinki in it) and formed Finland and had a gay old time. I was doing pretty well.

ALAS...

So, at first glance and knowing nothing about the games, FInland seems to be in a fine position. Half of Sweden, half of Norway, some parts of Russia...

but as anyone who knows literally anything about the game (or knows about European Geography) will tell you...

I literally got all of the shitty provinces. De jure Finland includes Finland, Karelia (which was Finnish all the way up to WW2 afaik), and Estonia! Estonia has good provinces, the two southwestern Finland provinces (Finland proper and Uusimma) are pretty good too, but most of Finland is, well, cold. Coldness does not lend itself well to living. So, I, in my infinite wisdom because I didn't realize how shitty the provinces actually were, got all of the bad ones from Norway and Sweden and Russia. The only good provinces I got that was not part of Finland were Pskov (the one to the east of Lithuania) and halsingland (the most southern swedish province I have).

Now, Rus controls Novgorod and Ryazan and all those little nations. They also constitute the good parts of Russia, and they also had Ukraine, which made them a fucking pain in the butt to deal with. For the first 40 years, I did very little... other than stealing a province or two from Lithuania when I allied with Poland.

Now, the cool part is when the new features work :) There are coalitions in the game, basically if a nation gets too big than other nations near it might band together and say "if they attack us or we attack them, we all go in" but only for that country. This allowed me to ally with Lithuania (who, while also mad at me, also got wrecked by Rus pretty hard), Poland... So the first war I had with Rus whilst in that coalition was brutal. I ran out of manpower, so I had to sit still while Poland and Lithuania fought them to gain back one of Lithuania's provinces (barely too; Lithuania and Poland were close to running out as well). 5 years later, they do it again, only this time Rus gets broken first and we release Ukraine, which severely hits Rus's manpower.

The Il-Khanate, which I haven't mentioned but are the strongest army in the game by FAR (they are also christian so while they don't like us all that much, they're not chomping at the bit for my shitty russian provinces), decides to take advantage of Rus's lack of manpower, and invades them. My white peace was up, so we all invade Rus at basically the same time and Rus gets dismantled pretty hard, compared to their earlier dominance.

It doesn't look like I got much, but that province I circled is Novgorod (now called Veliky Novgorod apparently) which at this point in time is an extremely rich ass province and it honestly bumped my economy up 3 gold per month, which is huge considering I was getting .55 per month with my army fully reinforced.

Also I was colonizing which probably explains my lack of money.

Honestly I'm pretty much the only colonizer at this point; Not to say that colonization is all that important in this game (which is converted from a CK2 game with Sunset Invasion, which basically makes an alt history where the Aztecs invade Europe), but I'm still taking it all! I'm surprised France hasn't gone for it yet; the others are busy with other things (England with Scotland and Aragon with trying not to get conquered whole cloth by France).

Also I renamed Massachusetts to Drakeland, because you know.

Now, I'm kinda fucked. The Reformation is happening and I converted to protestant, because most of my provinces were, but my colonies were not so I'm getting mad rebellions there... plus the Il-Khanate is getting all up in my grill finally.

They're fucking huge D: From Saudi Arabia to Siberia, they're the largest army still and Byzantium barely won a war they called me, Sweden, Lithuania and Poland in... and by won i mean white peace D:

So yes! I think this game is pretty good. If any of y'all have any questions (and you invariably do if you bother to read all of this), hit me. I played 11 hours today, which basically means i am an expert.