is tutorial bad?

[bigbad]

idk im too lazy to watch a 10 part tutorial each vid like 45 minutes long lol

[RCMidas]

Then you're likely to be too lazy for the rest of the game unless you regularly use the console. This sort of game will take literal hundreds of hours to become respectably good at (no matter how much pre-game theory you memorise) and a good thousand or two to actually master it.

[Malvastor]

A lot of people recommend tutorials as a necessary first step. Personally, I've never watched one. But that's because I don't mind jumping in with just a basic understanding and picking up everything else from experience (or the wiki when necessary). That route takes patience as well, and can often involve a lot of frustrating missteps. It just depends on what fits your personality better.

[Allwynd]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Then you're likely to be too lazy for the rest of the game unless you regularly use the console. This sort of game will take literal hundreds of hours to become respectably good at (no matter how much pre-game theory you memorise) and a good thousand or two to actually master it.

Even if I play single player on Easiest difficulty?

I have never played this game or anything close to it, the only somewhat similar games I have played are Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Age of Wonders 2 and other fantasy x4 games that try to copy Master of Magic (although I suck at x4 games).

I got a free copy of the game on Epic Games Store a few minutes ago, how much will I have to learn in order to even be able to play against the easiest AI enemies? Is the learning curve very steep?

[RCMidas]

The ability to reload from earlier saves on a non-Ironman game, at any difficulty, gives you massive learning advantages. Best way to do it to begin with if you aren't using tutorials or watching guides and advices etc, in my opinion. Though I do recommend you start as one of the major European players such as Ottomans, Castille, England etc, since you are less likely to get screwed over by a bad decision than if you play as a small nation such as Garwhal or Athens.

I've been playing somewhere near 150 hours at this point - and Steam is getting confused because the figure it shows varies wildly for no obvious reason (at one point it dropped from 113 hours to 98!) maybe because I'm offline a lot - and there's a lot of room for improvement across nearly everything I do.

If you're an achievement hunter, this is going to be an extremely long experience. If you're not, you can do what you like and probably still enjoy it just as much.

[monsieur]

Personally I never watched one. Just started playing as the Ottomans to understand basic mechanics. I did however watched plenty of gameplays and guides on youtube

[susannag]

I never watched a tutorial - but I also played a ton of hours of EU2 and EU3. I hold with the advice to choose a good "starter nation," though. Ottomans are a solid general choice there; Portugal is good if you want to learn the colonization game.

[Usaball]

It's bad, you're better off watching how to play the basic countries on Youtube/Twitch/etc and then trying it yourself. It teaches you the basics, sure, but you'll still most likely be dumbfounded the first 50-100 hours. In fact, people with 1000 hours are considered new, that's how complex EU4 is aha. But at the start, don't be afraid to fail with a major country, just restart.