Europa Universalis 5 (Project Caesar) is somewhere on the horizon now, and given what we know about the game, I thought it would be interesting to compare it and its predecessor to an increasingly antiquated inspiration for the series, Guns Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond.
EU5, by nature of bringing in more complex elements (population and logistics being the biggest ones) has an opportunity to transform the series.
I cut a whole section on the nature of bad faith critique because it became a tedious roundabout of exonerating Diamond against the claims of random internet weirdos who said they had PhDs and were bothered by his work, but started casting shadows of things Diamond simply did not say, and it was……. Tangential to say the least.
Johan if you see this tweet a cowboy emoji so I know.
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Thanks to:
Bret Devereaux’s blog: https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iv-why-europe/
(he may also be found on twitter: @BretDevereaux)
@ladysaffronvtuber -a vtuber for paradox games, and a dork.
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My Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KRosencreutz
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rosencreutz.bsky.social
Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/Rosencreutz
Discord: https://discord.gg/cZNHhHAMzJ
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Sources:
Blaut, JM (1999) Geographical Review, Vol. 89, No. 3 (Jul., 1999)
Correia, D (2013) F**k Jared Diamond, Capitalism Nature Socialism,
24:4,
Devereaux, B. (2021) Europa Universalis IV, Part IV: Why Europe?. ACOUP Blog, Collections: Teaching Paradox
Diamond, J (1998) Guns, Germs and Steel, London: Vintage, 1998
Sluyter, A. (2003), Neo-Environmental Determinism, Intellectual Damage Control, and Nature/Society Science. Antipode, 35: p. 816.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:56 Explaining Paradox and Europa Universalis
07:44 Development, Divergence, and Simulation
11:39 Guns, Germs, and Steel
18:53 Critiquing Diamond
30:37 Intersecting GGS and EU4
36:41 EU5, A New Model(?)
39:44 Intersecting GGS, EU4, and EU5
51:22 Conclusion
53:57 Outro