I'm still fresh into EU4 from the sale, already having spent 50 dollars to get the game and SOME of the dlc for a game over a decade old, and it's been pretty rough ngl.
I'm coming into this only having "baby hours" in Stellaris and Imperator (Imperator being the one that more closely translates) of about 300 hours so while I can kinda understand what's going on feel like there's so much stuff the game either hides from you or locks behind a dlc. To loosely quote the movie "Goodfellas":
-Want to rip off the band aid of an imminent revolt by triggering it immediately? ♥♥♥♥ you, pay me
-Want to include diplomatic actions in the macrobuilder? ♥♥♥♥ you, pay me
-Want to have any real control over trade/ develop centers? ♥♥♥♥ you, pay me
-Want any real control over vassals or better alliance management? ♥♥♥♥ you, pay me
And so on and so on. It's extra frustrating because a lot of these features which are broadly useful to any nation you play will be buried in a dlc with a bunch of content you don't really care about, like that one south park bit of cable companies locking a channel behind a package of 500 Portuguese channels. I don't care about playing in Indonesia fam, just let me have monuments. Point being integral upgrades or mechanics to the game should just be part of the update and flavor/ expansion of mechanics for specific nations should be dlc...but why tf would paradox do that when people will buy it amirite?
Putting aside the dlc nonsense, and this may just be new player skill issue on my part I admit, when playing any non immediate superpower nation it feels like you are utterly at the mercy of RNG and rerolls to get a better game. If a nation you need to expand into allies some other big nation, just restart. If one of your starting rivals is a nation you need to be an ally, just restart. If straight up dice roll event doesn't go your way, just restart. All of these are just examples from a couple of not so good runs as the Teutonic order, again maybe I just suck, but really what the hell are you supposed to do when Poland allies Bohemia and Hungary hates your guts from the get go?
AE impact and coalitions are possibly the worst example of "You're having too much fun, stop it" I've ever seen in a game. You can fight tooth and nail to fully occupy an enemy, because you pretty much have to to get them to accept peace, and can take maybe 2-3 provinces without shooting your campaign in the head. I'm assuming this is because they wanted to reign in "snowballing" and keep the game interesting for longer, so that means it's better to make one war turn into 5 different wars over the course of decades ig. I imagine this is the part where the thousands of hours group hops down my throats about "ermmm, reduce AE effects, uhmmm conquer different culture groups" as if it excuses the system or does anything to address the fact that none of that is clearly explained in the game. Hell, not like Paradox seems too staunch about coalitions as a system seeing as they were absent in Stellaris and Imperator right?
There's still the skeleton of a fun and immersive grand strategy game here, I'm sure I'll put hundreds of hours into this and throw a little more money at the bloat even, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if this isn't one of the most tentative recs I can give.
