I love Europa Universalis and yes that also is one of those games that made me understand history much better.
I hadn't previously "gotten" the Hundred Years war, but when you play one of these games it's obvious. If you're England, and you want to fight a war, France is the obvious place to do it. And it's practically self-financing, since you pay for the war by looting the French. On the other hand, France is twice as big and so once they get their act together, the English can't hold on.
The key aspect of a good history game isn't the raw number of pieces and complexity of rules (where more is usually worse) -- it's that the mechanics force you to confront the real options and challenges that historical decision-makers had. And EU is great for that.
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Date: 2017-05-18 06:18 pm (UTC)I hadn't previously "gotten" the Hundred Years war, but when you play one of these games it's obvious. If you're England, and you want to fight a war, France is the obvious place to do it. And it's practically self-financing, since you pay for the war by looting the French. On the other hand, France is twice as big and so once they get their act together, the English can't hold on.
The key aspect of a good history game isn't the raw number of pieces and complexity of rules (where more is usually worse) -- it's that the mechanics force you to confront the real options and challenges that historical decision-makers had. And EU is great for that.