Time to learn a new game

Uhm, yes, but learning this one may be a bit more complex than I had anticipated...

• A Newbie's First Steps into Europa Universalis IV

  the first couple of hours were spent not so much playing the game as opening menus, hovering the cursor over icons and reading text, trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do.

  ...

  Toward the end of the second day, things in the game got pretty crazy as countries went bankrupt, monarchs were excommunicated left and right and people without the resources to do it started declaring war just to see what would happen. My army was humiliated by the stave-wielding natives of Sierra Leon, the market was dominated by fish, England fell, dogs and cats were living together—it was Armageddon.

• Europa Universalis IV and the Border Between Complex and Complicated

  Europa Universalis games tend to be a little, shall we say, complex. It's a series that speaks in terms like cassus belli and papal curia, featuring a map crammed full of long-forgotten nations where every last political maneuver is an opportunity to broker a deal that might someday come back to haunt you.

  ...

  "We want complex, but not complicated," says Johansson. "A complex feature has a lot of factors that influence it, and you will discover that when you thought you mastered it, there is a sudden a shift in dynamics that forces you to reevaluate your strategy. Complex features are what make games fun in the long run."

• Europe Universalis IV Post Spanish Tutorial Map - Episode 1

  Oh, Europa Universalis IV, you saucy minx you. This is the most confusing game I have played recently, but I still have fun with it.

• Re: Europa Universalis 4

  I'm pretty much King of Europe at this point thanks to abusing personal unions and the only other large Christian realms are Poland and Lithuania, who I've got royal marriages with so I can force personal unions on them too if they ever lack an heir. I'm trying to unify the Holy Roman Empire as I've been Emperor for about 60 years now and I just passed the fifth reform (the one that disables internal HRE wars) and I've kind of hit a brick wall with authority, since there are no heretics to convert and no one will declare war on HRE members.

• Beginner's guide

  There are no specific victory conditions in Europa Universalis IV, Although there is a score visible throughout and at the end of the game at the top right corner of the interface. The player is free to take history in whatever direction they desire. They may take a small nation with a single province and turn it into a powerhouse to rule the world, take control of a historically powerful nation and cause it to crumble and anything in between.

• Top 5 Tips to getting started in Europa Universalis IV

  Don't Play as Scotland.

  In fact, don’t even be friends with Scotland. At least not until you are familiar with the game and want a challenge. Nobody likes Scotland at this stage of history, and you are only a couple hundred years from the Glorious Revolution. So unless you think you can do better than the Jacobites, best to avoid Scotland for now. Every start I have made so far has seen Scotland either nearly or completely wiped off the map at an early stage by England.