Europa Universalis: Vae Victis, developed and published by Paradox Interactive, is, by far, the deepest strategy game I have ever played. So much that nearly every citizen has a name, a face, traits, desires, and are better suited for certain roles in society. By the time you add in wars, diplomacy, and trying to advance your civilization through trading and evolving technology, and you’ve really got a lot to do throughout the entire game. If you were to combine Medieval II: Total War, Risk and Civilization IV, then I imagine the result would probably look something similar to Europa Universalis: Vae Victis.

One thing that surprised me about Vae Victis was how realistic Paradox had made the game. You must always have a reason for going to war, if you don’t then your people will surely make you pay the consequences, or how nobility and respect is important to other people. Having a bad name is never a good thing, and is often a way you can even sabotage an empire. While you can always just have the person assassinated, bringing down a person by smearing their good name is also equally satisfying.

Besides the beginning load screen, which takes a painfully long time, the rest of the games loading times are significantly shorter and faster. The tutorials do a decent job of explaining all of the games numerous components, but I really wish it would have let you do the actions with it. Instead, you read text, similar to how you would an instruction manual, and you never really feel like you gain a familiarity with the game’s interface throughout the tutorials.