Of all video game genres, strategy has historically been one of the least accessible. The most popular strategy games manage a delicate balance between complex, nuanced mechanics and keeping new players interested long enough to learn about everything the game has to offer. Europa Universalis 4, unlike most of its competitors, eschews hand-holding and focuses instead on letting its audience play with a ruthlessly accurate recreation of four centuries of European history.

The real beauty of EU4 comes from the variety of options for play. There are a few basic rules. The Earth is divided into a few hundred "provinces," each holding resources and continually generating more cash and people for you to use for military, exploration, diplomatic influence, religious domination, etc. The complexity is a sort of emergent property of those restrictions, and their applications create a myriad of varied scenarios. It is entirely within your power, for example, to take the reins of Louis XIV, start a war with everyone, ride into battle with your foolishly out-of-touch leader as a general, get him killed in battle, convert your France into a more democratic society and avoid the French Revolution - or you could just take over the world. The possibilities aren't endless, but when you can play as a fledgling Ottoman Empire and conquer Britain by 1500, it can certainly seem like it.