I am a fan of Empire and City builders and am interested in the time period for the game, just curious if anyone who has played can give some insight on the game itself. Enjoyable? Games you might compare it to? Looking at the gamefly sale and wondering if I should pull the trigger.

if this is your 1st time on paradox game, to put it simply is a total war w/o 3d battles, less on building more on conquest and more on historical approach

So no RTS element correct?

it is real time strategy but on grand scope/map level. btw, quite sure the demo is on steam.

It's enjoyable, but hard to compare to other games. It plays similarly to Total War's turn based part, except it's real time. Best if you check out the demo, or EU3 was available in many bundles so somebody might have a key lying around...

Very, very enjoyable.
It is similar to Crusader King II (same company), but less combat focused.
You can even begin a game in CK II and convert the save game to Europa Universalis IV, if you want to.

The finest grand strategy game I know of. The learning curve is quite a thing, though.
After a few dozen hours you may actually know where everything is in the user interface. :-)

On youtube, you can find well made videos by "quill18" that show what the gameplay is like.
I highly recommend it, even though it is, unfortunately, a steam-only title.

It's a very good game imo, much closer to something like Civilization than any RTS. It's much more history-based, with a lot of attention spent on trying to make the game as accurate as possible while letting players have full freedom to do what they want in the game (so if you want to play a Native American nation and try to conquer the world, you can, even though it's very difficult to achieve).

The only reason it's real time is that since there are tons of countries (all of which are playable), making it turn-based would involve a lot of time spent between your turns watching the AI do its moves for all the factions it controls.

Do note though that the game is quite complex and the tutorials aren't very useful, so the best way to learn is to watch a few let's play or to just play the game and learn through experience.

This monopoly practice needs to die. People rave about the free market, and here is another fine example of hating the free market and instead putting in limitations to ensure monopoly (even if somewhat limited and more on a by product level). When I go to shop food, they have cheese and milk and bread in the same store. I don't have to go to three different stores (although there is of course some of the same free market hatred going on there too, with smaller brands finding it close to impossible to get into the main stores, at least where I am from).

The Europa Universalis series is a great one. The battle system is limited, but it has nice diplomacy and economy system. It's a Grand Strategy game, so micro-managing isn't the main way to win.

Until recently (until a recent DLC), EU used the whole world map, with "Terra Incognita", which is parts of the world undiscovered by your faction. Discovering new territories and creating colonies and trading posts are essential in EU.
But IIRC a recent DLC made the New World a random one, and in the way the Imperialism series or even Civilization series did. I personally disliked that move, but while I have spend many many many hours/days/months/years in EU2, I have played a little EU3, and I didn't played EU4. I see EU4 interesting mostly for MP.

If you don't want to be forced to play with Steam, but if you are interested in the EU series, I'll recommend a full EU3 (with all expansions), or a heavy modded EU2 (which is more difficult than EU3, and which I like the most).

But since it seems to be a EU4 demo, you should give it a try.

I dislike the fact that newer Paradox titles require Steam to be installed, but I can't exactly blame them for making that decision either. They created a DRM-free version of Crusader Kings II and the financial result didn't justify the expense. Plus, even among the DRM-free crowd, there is enough people that are willing to accept the compromise of having to use Steam to install the game, but being able to play the game without it that it (unfortunately) makes a non-Steam version even more redundant.

I just wish Paradox would put their older games on GOG already, since none of their justifications regarding not being on the service apply to their games that already have DRM-free versions. I'm also very saddened by the fact that East vs West was cancelled; not only was the concept great (there really isn't enough Cold War games), but the developers also promised a non-Steam version. =(

Anyway, I haven't played EU IV, but EU III was fantastic and is also easily available outside of Steam (I have the retail Complete collection, which includes the base game and all the expansions). If you're not sure about EU IV, you can try out III; it's pretty cheap and easy to obtain nowadays. Besides, considering the sheer amount of expansions and DLC Paradox has been releasing for their latest titles, it's better to postpone purchasing them until a later time.

But i'm pretty sure it's DRM-free on Steam, though (someone correct me if i'm wrong).

it is. simply copied outside installed folder and it will work. multi player on other hand

I was saddened too, when another Cold War game was cancelled: Twilight Struggle (the original boardgame is here) only few days after the East vs West cancellation.
:/

I honestly have no idea whether it can justifiably be called "DRM-free" for some miraculous reason.
Even if it is, a small update could easily change that any time - unless you have updates disabled.

It can be called DRM-free for the same reason Gamersgate games can be called DRM-free (the ones without third-party DRM, obviously). You just need the Steam client to download the game (just like you HAVE to use GG's own downloader to get your games there), then you can take the game AWAY from the Steam folder and never deal with the Steam client ever again.

And how exactly will the game update if you take it away from Steam's folder? I haven't tested it myself, but i'm pretty damn sure that if you move the game's files away from your Steam folder, Steam won't magically track the game's directory and force an update on you.