History VideoGame / EuropaUniversalis

** Due to how coalitions work in ''4'', doubling down instead of sucking up is a perfectly viable way of growing your country again. Countries at war or under truce with the coalition target cannot join the coalition, allowing you to declare simultaneous wars on major countries before they could join (you don't have to win, just get a truce so they are locked out of the coalition). Once multiple majors are under truce with you, break the truce and destroy them one by one and just tank the stability hit with the Machiavellian government reform. The coalition can do nothing but watch in horror as you destroy in detail most of the big countries that could have been the backbone of a mutual war against you, leaving nothing but lesser nations with isolated stacks that stand no chance against your merciless legions of doom.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Your nation can be a bunch of genocidal maniacs, but with the espionage and diplomacy idea groups, your state propaganda can dilute the truth of your atrocities (lower aggressive expansion gain) and your diplomats can assure everyone of your good intention (faster AE decay), causing any bad press you get to be temporary at most.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Your nation can be a bunch of genocidal maniacs, but with the espionage and diplomacy idea groups, your state propaganda can dilute the truth of your atrocities (lower aggressive expansion gain) and your diplomats can assure everyone around you of your good intention (faster AE decay), allowing you to still maintain good relations with those around you.

" VillainWithGoodPublicity: Your nation can be a bunch of genocidal maniacs, but with the espionage and diplomacy idea groups, your state propaganda can dilute the truth of your atrocities (lower aggressive expansion gain) and your diplomats can assure everyone around you of your good intention (faster AE decay), allowing you to still maintain good relations with those around you.

** Due to how coalitions work in ''4'', doubling down instead of sucking up is a perfectly viable way of growing your country again. Countries at war or under truce with the coalition target cannot join the coalition, allowing you to declare simultaneous wars on major countries before they could join (you don't have to win, just get a truce so they are locked out of the coalition). Once multiple majors are under truce with you, declare war with them one by one and just tank the stability hit from breaking truce with the Machiavellian government reform. The coalition can do nothing but watch in horror as you destroy in detail most of the big countries that could have been the backbone of a mutual war against you, leaving nothing but lesser nations with isolated stacks that stand no chance against your merciless legions of doom.

** Due to how coalitions work in ''4'', doubling down instead of sucking up is a perfectly viable way of growing your country again. Countries at war or under truce with the coalition target cannot join the coalition, allowing you to declare simultaneous wars on major countries before they could join and destroy them piecemeal (you don't have to win, just get a truce so they are locked out of the coalition). Once multiple majors are under truce with you, declare war with them one by one and just tank the stability hit from breaking truce with the Machiavellian government reform. The coalition can do nothing but watch in horror as you destroy in detail most of the big countries that could have been the backbone of a mutual war against you, leaving nothing but lesser nations with isolated stacks that stand no chance against your merciless legions of doom.

** Due to how coalitions work in ''4'', doubling down instead of sucking up is a perfectly viable way of growing your country again. Countries at war or under truce with the coalition target cannot join the coalition, allowing you to declare wars on major countries before they could join and destroy them piecemeal. If one war is not enough to completely remove their ability to fight, then you can declare another as soon as the truce is over, or better yet, declare immediately after the last one is over and just tank the stability hit with the Machiavellian government reform. The coalition can do nothing but watch in horror as you destroy in detail many of the big countries that could have been the backbone of a mutual war against you, leaving nothing but lesser nations with isolated stacks that stand no chance against your merciless legions of doom.

** Due to how coalitions work in ''4'', doubling down instead of sucking up perfectly viable way of growing your country again. Countries at war or under truce with the coalition target cannot join the coalition, allowing you to declare wars on major countries before they could join and destroy them piecemeal. If one war is not enough to completely remove their ability to fight, then you can declare another as soon as the truce is over, or better yet, declare immediately after the last one is over and just tank the stability hit with the Machiavellian government reform. The coalition can do nothing but watch in horror as you destroy in detail many of the big countries that could have been the backbone of a mutual war against you, leaving nothing but lesser nations with isolated stacks that stand no chance against your merciless legions of doom.

** Due to how coalitions work in ''4'', doubling down instead of sucking up perfectly viable way of growing your country again. Countries at war or under truce with the coalition target cannot join the coalition, allowing you to declare simultaneous wars on major countries before they could join and destroy them piecemeal. If one war is not enough to completely remove their ability to fight, then you can declare another as soon as the truce is over, or better yet, declare immediately after the last one is over and just tank the stability hit with the Machiavellian government reform. The coalition can do nothing but watch in horror as you destroy in detail all of the big countries that could have been the backbone of a war against you, leaving nothing but minors with isolated stacks that stand no chance against your merciless legions of doom.

* ThenLetMeBeEvil: After crossing certain point of badboy or infamy points, there is pretty much no turning back - everyone will hate you and plot against you, starting countless wars against you before the infamy will decrease to non-threatening level. The only way to survive is to continue the conquest until there is nobody left to threaten your empire.

* AlwaysSecondBest: In ''IV'', the Mamluk sultanate is this to the Ottomans, due to the Ottomans having several mechanical advantages. [[note]]The Ottomans can gain Empire rank simply by conquering Constantinople, while the Mamluks have to either form another nation with Empire rank (usually Arabia) or gain enough land to reach 1000 development ''and'' accumulate enough prestige. By forming Arabia, Mamluks also lose their unique Mamluk government type, while the Ottomans' government type gives them substantial bonuses, including an additional maximum of 3 states, the best bonus in this category after the Russians' unique Tsardom government. In addition, the Ottomans only have to worry about the Mediterranean when it comes to ruling the seas, while Mamluks have to split their fleets between the Med and the Red and Arabian Seas.[[/note]] Ironically, they start 1444 as the world's second-ranked Great Power, while the Ottomans are third. While quite rare for the AI, it's surprisingly easy for a human-controlled Mamluk player to decisively defeat the Ottomans within the first 20 years and become the strongest country in the entire world outside of the Ming dynasty.

''Europa Universalis'' is a series of historical [[TurnBasedStrategy turn-based]] / [[RealTimeStrategy real-time]] FourX GrandStrategy games for the PC and Mac (based [[ArtifactTitle increasingly loosely]] on a licensed French [[BoardGames board game]]). Starting in the Late Middle Ages, it focuses greatly on the Early Modern Period. The games are produced, developed and published by Creator/ParadoxInteractive.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The Counter Revolutionary malus is meant to represent the fear that European monarchies felt when France became a Republic. However, unlike in real life, this is very unlikely to unite the kingdoms of Europe against the republic, as they are usually too caught up in their own webs of rivalries to care about snuffing out the revolution.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The Counter Revolutionary malus is meant to represent the fear that European monarchies felt when France became a Republic. However, unlike in real life, this is very unlikely to unite the kingdoms of Europe to against the republic, as they are usually too caught up in their own webs of rivalries to care about snuffing out the revolution.

*** Karelian is an "East Slavic" culture because Karelians are an Orthodox people who lived under Russian states, even if linguistically they're Finnic.[[note]]before you ask, there's no "Finnic" culture group because the game puts Finnish and Sami within the "Nordic" group, and Estonian within the "Baltic" group[[/note]]

* GreenAesop: An unusual example with migatory tribes after their rework. Contrary to their usual depictions as guardians of nature, migatory tribes in ''IV'' now cause devastation at their capital province (attributed to "tribal grazing"). This, combined with the tribal development mechanic, [[UnfortunateImplications depicts migatory tribes as pillagers of their lands]].

** Played UpToEleven in quite a few mods, which add ridiculous amounts of choices, of course all with the same outcome. The ones down the list often carry headers like "Oh, not again", "Will this ever stop?" and so on.

** Nobles Republic. The ruler is elected from a handful of candidates for life. It's republic solely in name, to the point where the ruler is styled as king and royal marriages are allowed. Widely considered one of the worst forms of government, since foreign countries can meddle into your elections, the government is weak and in ''III'', also decentralised.
** Republican Dictatorship, while ostensibly a republic, has ruler elected for a life term and, unlike the king in Nobles Republic, having an absolute power, rather than being a figurehead to bend over to demands of the nobility. This makes it a republic solely in it's name and the only thing that differs from actual monarchies is lack of royal marriages. If mishandled, it will devolve into an Absolute Monarchy (which oftentimes is beneficial).

* CircassianBeauty: Circassia has a national idea in ''EU IV'' called "Adyghe Beauty", which decreases prestige decay for the country.

*** Despite the presence of a "West Slavic" culture group, Slovak belongs to the "Carpathian" culture group together with Hungarian. This is justifiable since Slovakia was, for the historical period of the game, part of the Kingdom of Hungary, so having the two in the same culture groups reduces foreign culture penalties.

** Armenians and Ethiopians follow the "Coptic" Christian religion rather than "Orthodox", on the basis that they're much closer to the former than the latter. While Armenian, Ethiopians and Copts are part of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches the same church]], Copts are an ethnic group limited to Egypt, thus making it a mistake to use "Coptic" to indicate the other two Churches as well.

*** The "Altaic"[[note]]while the existence of an Altaic linguistic ''family'' is generally discredited, the term is still accepted for cultural reasons and to denote a linguistic ''area'' (that is, unrelated languages that end up influencing each other because of proximity)[[/note]] group includes Mongolic and Turkic languages spoken in Central Asia, but excludes Turkic languages spoken in the former Golden Horde (they're "Tatar" instead), Turkish and Azerbaijani.

*** On a similar fashion, the peoples of the Philippines belong to a single "Filipino" culture. Again, it's a name of Spanish origin that was first applied to the island in the 1500.