It's not often that games provoke reflection on a wider scale than the role of entertainment as a diversion in our lives, but Europa Universalis IV has provided quite a lot of munch on. 'All's fair in love and war', and now I am somewhat more acquainted with histories and causes the latter than I have been.
Of course, one cannot possibly hope to encapsulate all the intricacies of nations on anything processable by a domestic computer, even if Moore's law continues to push our limitations. EUIV however, does a much better job than most other games, notably the Civilisation series. Bringing in religion, geopolitics, dynastic struggles and colonisation, and revelling in the sheer inequality of it all.
When one begins a campaign, plans for aggrandisement and expansion help to drive the first hundred years or so of gameplay. You are put in the shoes of a ruler, and that drive to build something that will last, achieve domination and preeminence, becomes something relatable.
Halfway through, if one plays aggressively, it is easy to become a virtual world power, maybe controlling the most trade, being a dominant land power, or unifying the lands of one culture group. The game suddenly loses steam, that drive to be the first gives way to a strange purposelessness. The player begins to wonder what was so appealing about achieving to begin with.
This sentiment of nihilistic disenchantment is exacerbated, when after thirty to forty hours of campaign time, everything ends abruptly in 1821. The game gives you a little pat on the back, and shows you the door. The sandbox gameplay has revealed how countries define their own goals based on their self interest, but in the end, when one considers all the circumstances, the entire exercise seems so futile, even detrimental.
Thousands of lives were given to the service of the nationalistic dream, whether than dream was centred around the Valois or the Ming. Alliances are forged and broken when convenient with a perfunctory swiftness. Then as we know from history, European hegemony came crashing down, in a great destructive debacle where the flags of many empires flew for the last time over people who could no longer naively endorse the casus belli of their rulers.
In that age is was easy to believe in the power and vision of a king, but events have conspired to deconstruct that lie. In its wake we came up with new reasons to fight, new causes to champion, new ideas to die for. The modern world has saturated itself with glories even more transient and fleeting than the legacy of the Habsburgs or Pax Britannia, and we buy into them because we need something to buy into, but Empire is so last century. I suppose it's time we turn to more eternal goals to strive for.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, Sed Non Transit Gloria Dei
