Is this base game good?

[Richard I]

I've been reading DLC reviews, and a lot of people are mad and say that you need the DLC's to play the game properly. I'm kind of on a budget, not looking to spend $100 on a game that I'm not even sure I'll enjoy. I think I would enjoy it, but I can't justify spending that much on a game.

[hoot hoot]

There's a sale on Paradox games right now, so it might be a good time to buy in. A question that is asked a lot is what are the "key" DLCs to get first, so you might search for that.

I've never played the base game and I've kept up on literally all the DLC for a while, so I don't know what is or isn't included in the base game anymore. It'll surely be bare bones, but if you've never used any DLC, you may not notice as you grapple with just learning the game.

EDIT: The Starter Pack is discounted nearly 70%, so I'd recommend that. I'd say try to avoid playing the base game with no DLC as it's just not as good an experience.

[Richard I]

Originally posted by Dino Pope:

There's a sale on Paradox games right now, so it might be a good time to buy in. A question that is asked a lot is what are the "key" DLCs to get first, so you might search for that.

I've never played the base game and I've kept up on literally all the DLC for a while, so I don't know what is or isn't included in the base game anymore. It'll surely be bare bones, but if you've never used any DLC, you may not notice as you grapple with just learning the game.

That's a good idea, I'll probably buy the base game and a few important DLC's after searching the forum

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Iromak:

I've been reading DLC reviews, and a lot of people are mad and say that you need the DLC's to play the game properly. I'm kind of on a budget, not looking to spend $100 on a game that I'm not even sure I'll enjoy. I think I would enjoy it, but I can't justify spending that much on a game.

I spent hundreds of hours playing the base game before there were any DLCs, and it was a great experience. Many subsequent DLC features have been rolled into the base game, so it's even better now.

And there's always the subscription option. For $5, you can try every DLC. Decide what you like, wait for a sale, buy those only, and save a ton of cash. Or, if you decide you'd rather play something else, cancel the sub after buying nothing but the base game, and save a ton of cash.

[wren06]

This is a bit confusing to me. I'm considering buying it on sale myself, but I see the base game has mostly positive reviews, and pretty much ALL the DLC's have Mixed or worse. I think there are only two dlc's with positive reviews. So I guess I'm not sure what will make the game better since it appears, based on reviews, that just about everything will make it worse.

[Sharpie The Dragon]

No, The base game is not good and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody at all.

[BjornB]

Not to diminish the value of people's reviews - but they are usually based on very specific things. Broken save files with an update is a common reason for bad reviews. A bug introduced with the update (and probably/hopefully patched away by now).

Or it is one specific change in the update they didn't like - which might play differently now. The point is that the bad reviews are usually not relating to how important owning that specific expansion is to the overall experience today.

We are aware of the quite steep entry cost - which is why we introduced the subscription option for €5 / month to make it a bit more affordable (up front at least) to try out the full EU4 experience.

I hope you will enjoy the game!

[Sharpie The Dragon]

Originally posted by BjornB:

Not to diminish the value of people's reviews - but they are usually based on very specific things. Broken save files with an update is a common reason for bad reviews. A bug introduced with the update (and probably/hopefully patched away by now).

Or it is one specific change in the update they didn't like - which might play differently now. The point is that the bad reviews are usually not relating to how important owning that specific expansion is to the overall experience today.

We are aware of the quite steep entry cost - which is why we introduced the subscription option for €5 / month to make it a bit more affordable (up front at least) to try out the full EU4 experience.

I hope you will enjoy the game!

It might've been better to have that £3.99 per month be tied to all your games as this is what companies are now doing. For example; EA Play gives you 90 games for £3.99, or £19.99 a year. You're offering this price point for a single game and all it's DLCs; Heck you could easily bump it up the price just to include all your games.

It's confusing why Paradox wouldn't go down this path when DLCs are their very focus on most games. People are less incentivized to go out and buy a base game charging £35.00 for eight years in a row, or a single DLC that you could easily buy multiple games with instead.

[Tanuvein]

Maybe when it came out, but I do feel you need quite a bit DLC to make the game feel right. So many rules and balance changes have been made specifically for the DLC that effects everyone, so it can be unsatisfying without some of the DLC and you will be constantly asking 'why can't I do this obvious thing?', with the answer usually being 'it is in a DLC'. There is basically an essential list of DLC - Common Sense, Wealth of Nations and Rights of Man as a minimum. Otherwise the game can be a bit too simple to be very engaging.

edit: One reason a lot of DLCs have bad reviews is they tend to break the game after coming out. For example I couldn't play CK3 for a month after its last major DLC. This isn't uncommon. People also give negative reviews because several of the DLCs tend to be feature lite at full price.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by wren06:

This is a bit confusing to me. I'm considering buying it on sale myself, but I see the base game has mostly positive reviews, and pretty much ALL the DLC's have Mixed or worse. I think there are only two dlc's with positive reviews. So I guess I'm not sure what will make the game better since it appears, based on reviews, that just about everything will make it worse.

Reviews don't get updated, but software does. Pretty much every DLC has released with bugs that caused angry players to review bomb the DLC. But the bugs got fixed and the game got better because of the DLC, not worse.

[Keyastian]

Well, and the prices just changed...

[El Fabuloso]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Originally posted by Iromak:

I've been reading DLC reviews, and a lot of people are mad and say that you need the DLC's to play the game properly. I'm kind of on a budget, not looking to spend $100 on a game that I'm not even sure I'll enjoy. I think I would enjoy it, but I can't justify spending that much on a game.

I spent hundreds of hours playing the base game before there were any DLCs, and it was a great experience. Many subsequent DLC features have been rolled into the base game, so it's even better now.

And there's always the subscription option. For $5, you can try every DLC. Decide what you like, wait for a sale, buy those only, and save a ton of cash. Or, if you decide you'd rather play something else, cancel the sub after buying nothing but the base game, and save a ton of cash.

This