Bret Devereaux

Because this is a game about states, most of the player's tools are coercive in nature and the overall model of power is zero-sum - for the player to become powerful and secure, other states must be rendered less so and defeated when they resist. 28/46

You can see this clearly in how the game models trade - trade exists as a flow of goods through trade nodes which can be redirected by either dominating the territory around those nodes, or the sea-lanes near them or both. 29/46

Successful trade policy redirects the trade flows back towards the home port of your country, thereby gaining that revenue and denying it to others. For you to get rich in trade, others must get poor. 30/46

I should note that the trade network is one part of the game that remains solidly Eurocentric; trade moves in a predicable direction and while it can be diverted this way or that in small ways, trade lanes begin in the Americas or Asia and end in Europe. 31/46

Consequently, building a trade empire from places that aren't Europe is usually impossible, restricting non-European states to large territorial empires (generally you either run a small state on trade or a big state on land taxes in the game). 32/46

All of that said, EU4 still does have some interesting bits of historical lessons. As noted, the map is fairly scrupulous and EU4 players are more likely to know where Prussia (or Mali, etc) is from playing. 33/46

As a 'Realist Political Dynamics Simulator' it is almost peerless. The value of that depends on how accurately you think Neorealism describes international systems. I think it is a useful lens, which lends EU4 some value in presenting that. 34/46

Historical events are trickier. The game is free-form, so events after the start date will not unfold in perfect historical order, though some major events (Printing Press, Reformation, etc) are encouraged by game mechanics to happen around the right time. 35/46