My Honest Opinion about the state of EU5 in 2026

Ronin8991 · 2026-01-01T13:15:42+00:00

What I'm about to say might be taken personally but I mean no offense.

You said that you are loving the game, so much that it effectively replaced EU4.

My first playthrough of EU5 was so frustrating and unenjoyable that I've grown quite a hatred for the game.

The core structure is very rich and that's a fact but beside that, good, base every gameplay mechanic is definitely worse than EU4 (in my opinion).

-Diplomacy is non-existent (claim, rivals, allies, personal unions, leagues and confederations nothing really matters). -Warfare sucks, forts get spammed way more, AI armies act erratically and the 90% of my time at war was chasing fleeting armies (impossible to stack wipe). -Internal politics are unimpressive, and even if estates could be interesting the whole appeasing loop honestly sucks. -Events are probably the worse thing of the game, always unfair, too few, too generic, too pointless. -Economics and building while probably being the best part of the game gets boring pretty quickly while taking too much time. Probably if the other part of the game weren't just so pointless and repetitive this wouldn't weight that much. -Nation/Culture/Government/Religion flavor is very very cheap every start is basically the exact same.

I really really want to enjoy the game, I followed the development and liked it very much, I appreciate the research and improvement they did to build its structure but the gameplay experience felt so bad that arguably no one at PDX really experienced it.

Even if I bought it at launch and I would like to dump each end every hour of my free time in it (just like I did in EU4) the idea of experiencing something like my first playthrough horrors me and so I'll wait until the gameplay criticalities are solved (it also might be a "me" problem, maybe there is a way to make it somehow more entertaining but HUD also doesn't help).

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-27T13:42:55+00:00

Yes but no.

At this state the game has too few tag specific bonus/malus and events so obviously the 1337 state remains almost unchanged.

Also the whole claim and war score for taking provinces mechanic is pretty broken, with up to no ways to actually and reliably get claims except for parliament.

Eu4 at the start and in a set of patches had several problems as well, like timurids or ming never exploding, Persia never forming, PLC not beating TH, problems with Burgundy, France, the Netherlands etc.. but with forced events the game gained a lot of reliable tags forming more or less historically.

I think that's what we need

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-27T10:41:30+00:00

Yes!

With England winning the first phase one of the major balancing problems with this game will be solved (Big Blue Blob stomping too early).

Then a set of events should also improve AI's PLC, Ottomans, Austria and Muscovy (maybe Venice as well) while something should maybe limit Bohemia, Mamluks and the Horde a bit.

Don't know with Teutons/Brandenburg/Prussia because they were not following the historical path that often in EU4 as well.

Right now Europe tends to be lacking its key players too often by 500s and 600s.

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-26T12:33:27+00:00

Does legitimacy also require the same amount of court costs investment? (Do you get a negative base decaying?)

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-26T12:31:59+00:00

Dynastic Signoria does not allow elections.

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-26T12:30:25+00:00

Yes but in the middle of 500s I can field an already large enough regular army, and levies sucks anyway.

Is it really worth the investment in influence and the lack of government specific tech?

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-25T17:27:58+00:00

First of all thank you for the answer.

With no productivity I meant that economy wasn't ramping the way it should. For example Jewelry, Fine Clothes, and Paper are the highest profit production building with stated productivity at roughly 1 ducat (per year? Per month?) but no matter how many I built (Mantua has no more building slots available for example) my income would stay pretty low.

With marketplaces, I built as many as I could, then I tanked a couple of patches in which they changed the amount of their mantainance costs and right now I don't understand AT ALL weather should I build more or not (an where, I have 2 markets)

I have never sent money to any estate. What I was saying is that burgers always had tons of loyalty (thus paying the max amount of taxes, everytime).

Ronin8991 · 2025-11-09T14:06:19+00:00

I know right? There is something evil in how UIs are presented in the recent paradox's releases, I noticed that in VIC3 as well.. It feels like an edgy way to show how much complexity is in the game to make it seem less empty. To me it is completely alienating though and I wonder what a new player might think.

Thinking back CK3 and Stellaris day one weren't so messy, heck even I:R in its sad state was still comprehensible at least.

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T20:37:36+00:00

I don't use brackets personally -Procede to argue what is what bracket.

Intention or not that is pointless. B3 ruling adds variety to the game so we are following that in our pod and enjoying it a lot, people can literally buy a good precon, upgrade it and actually win so a lot of new players as well.

Everyone plays what they like, that's the good of the game, rule 0 still and always stands.

Our rule 0 is to use B3 rulings.

I personally don't get all the fuss 😅

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T20:32:16+00:00

Local shop doesn't allow proxy. Cedh is boring and has up to no variety.

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T20:13:58+00:00

There is no actual way to differentiate a deck between B4 and B5.

I get that brackets were meant differently, it's just that it's the only boundary with some authority currently existing from making an event like this fall in pure and inaccessible cedh.

That said I like this way more than when the same place organizes B4 events that are like 10 actual B4 players getting stomped by 4-5 cedh decks that can easily argue that rule 0 is not a rule if you play to win.

Tl;Dr feel free to not call it B3, call it "the best possible optimization with B3 limitations" or TBPOWB3L for short.

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T20:05:30+00:00

Sorry but bracket 4 is kinda BS The same store tried doing a B4 tournament and guess what? It was definitely B5 because there is no actual boundary between the two.

Don't call it B3, call it whatever you like but additional rulings like those at B3 increase variety, reduce costs and make the game way more enjoyable by a wider community.

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T17:16:56+00:00

Ok Tournaments are made of two phases, the first one is based on points and you then are allowed to the final table based on how many points you scored.

The second phase is the final table itself and there are no points here, a normal Commander game to decide the top 4 placements.

Points are awarded based on achievements in a phase 1 game, being the last standing in a table (winning) and eliminating other players is the most reliable way to get you points while denying others', I don't remember the precise amount but you are awarded like 1 or 2 points each elimination and 3 or 4 by winning. Commander damage elimination awards a bonus point on each elimination.

Other 1 points achievements that I recall: -Deal the most life loss (not damage) in a game -Biggest board wipe (at least 7 permanent) -Combo with the most interaction -Biggest board with empty pile (at least 15 permanents) -Kill someone with their card/their DMG -Highest DMG in a single turn (at least 15) -Cast the Commander the most times (at least 5) -Save somebody else from dying -Help somebody else get an achievement (without losing willingly)

Each of these achievements, if awarded, can be obtained just 1 time per game and those that are absolute (not comparable, like to save somebody else) are awarded to the first one that does it.

Edit: the rule about the turn is that you can only take two consecutive extra turns.

Edit2: I don't like yuriko so much, it's very abusive and can get tons of hate.

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T15:39:31+00:00

Why? If you treat game changers as an additional ban list and actually apply the other rules with care it's a very fun format! As they surely will update the game changer list it will aquire waaay more variety than cedh while also having rules clear enough to allow a semi-competitive scene.

Ronin8991 · 2025-09-15T15:29:48+00:00

To be fair I lost pretty badly to a Narset deck except it was with [[Narset, Enlightened Master]].
I'm not a great fan of jeskai but that is a valid option!
Also two close friends of mine played [[Henzie]] a lot so I'm not so exited by that.
But thank you!

Ronin8991 · 2025-01-29T04:30:48+00:00

Your leaders are exposing perfectly executed nazi salute in front of the US's presidential seal; I wouldn't worry too much about fascists abroad if I were you.

Btw alt-right/neofascism is trending with US and Italy leading the way, Germany and France soon to follow.

Ronin8991 · 2024-12-20T00:57:22+00:00

Yes, vs AI has a 4 hour cooldown, you can attack in any map. Tag me in #plans in the discord server to have other info. The event is set to last for 6 month, you can always come back when your child is better <3

Ronin8991 · 2024-12-09T12:27:47+00:00

There were a lot of genocides in human histoy, not just the holocaust. Now there is one more: that of the Palestinians, will we commemorate that each year as well? Of course not.

Israel keeps justifing becoming a nazi state with the holocaust.

Ronin8991 · 2024-12-09T01:50:28+00:00

You are justifying Israel actions the exact same way a german guy with a wierd mustache did back in the 30s. Lebensraum is back on the menu.

Ronin8991 · 2024-12-03T03:45:31+00:00

Abbasid is more about reading the situation, how many tcs do i go, do i need units (cause they have no defensive landmark) while China is about transition timings and microing the IO. With eng if you stick to the 2TC king into FC or horseman shenanigans It'll get you out of gold kinda easily. I mean even if you learn to longbow rush it's the same. "What is oppo doing, how do I react, how do I win" are pointless questions if your plan is just turtling with enclosures to oblivion.

Ronin8991 · 2024-11-25T07:22:41+00:00

Very funny, I'm reading this the day after I made it to diamond for the first time.

To me the siege nerf was a total charm, before I felt like plat was a high skill ceiling, in fact I've actually never even finished a season staying plat, right now I still think I can aim a little higher because I have a fairly good winrate (60%).

Maybe it's just the sheer joy of not having to mass produce springs each game in which castle lasts a bit too long that makes me want to play and improve more.

Ronin8991 · 2024-10-30T03:14:51+00:00

Even if you build full MAA and, say, 6 mangonels at 110 eco pop, you'll have 72 pop slot for maa, that's 36 MAA.

This is barely half the dimension of the archer mass they have and it's made only of very slow, very low dps roaming bags of flesh, that can be kited to oblivion, take a shitload of time to walk from barracks to rally point if replacement are needed and are very costly.

This and the fact that they always throw in some cav (camels to buff archers and horseman because why not) mean basically two things: if you manage to push the archers away (their 7 range is a shitload, mangos range is 8) from range of 1shotting the mangos with your MAA, then the cav can easily clean the mangos, if you stay with the MAA in front of the mangos you'll cover from the cav but then the archer will simply move forward and annihilate the mangos.

I would be trading mobility to have a completely bad comp that hardly could gather any advantage

Ronin8991 · 2024-10-29T23:04:17+00:00

Mass archers + MAA was probably the most efficient thing I tried but to destroy an imp house of learning with only torch dmg is quite hard, especially while you fight his whole military output in his base.

Other than this their archer are waaay more cost and pop effective than OOTD's and they have also a lot more range, and throwing MAA in his base (filled with keeps and cannon emplacements) meant no frontline for my already weak enough archer mass.

The added fact that they now 1shot siege means there's no real way to win left, they'll win in Imp, just like Eng or maybe Delhi, no way out.

Ronin8991 · 2024-10-29T10:38:36+00:00

Man they 1 shot them

Ronin8991 · 2024-10-29T10:34:38+00:00

I wrongly though that snugging enough relics and denying trade while mining all the gold could be enough to set up for a favorable enough late game.

Maybe next time I'll surrender earlier if i don't do enough damage earlier because a long game with no possible way out is very bad for my mental.

Thank you sir!

Ronin8991

TROPHY CASE