When comparing World in Conflict vs Europa Universalis IV, the Slant community recommends World in Conflict for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” World in Conflict is ranked 48th while Europa Universalis IV is ranked 55th. The most important reason people chose World in Conflict is:
Taking place during an alternate history 1980's, World in Conflict depicts a world in which the Cold War suddenly turns hot, with the Soviet Union invading Europe and the United States. With a majority of the US military staving off the Russian advance in Europe, a small, retreating force of United States Armed Forces is left charge of repelling the Soviet assault on American soil. The campaign takes the player to the upper west coast of Washington, the mountains of Colorado, lush green fields in France and the snow-covered forests of Russia, each mission telling a story of the world's desperate attempt to stop the Soviet advance.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Engaging story
Taking place during an alternate history 1980's, World in Conflict depicts a world in which the Cold War suddenly turns hot, with the Soviet Union invading Europe and the United States. With a majority of the US military staving off the Russian advance in Europe, a small, retreating force of United States Armed Forces is left charge of repelling the Soviet assault on American soil. The campaign takes the player to the upper west coast of Washington, the mountains of Colorado, lush green fields in France and the snow-covered forests of Russia, each mission telling a story of the world's desperate attempt to stop the Soviet advance.
Pro Balanced battles
Utilizing an enhanced rock, paper, scissors combat system, World in Conflict allows balanced in play, as this intuitive system is something most are familiar with in RTS games and will be easy to grasp.
Pro Customizable AI lets players have fun without friends
In skirmishes, you can set up different personalities for, and customize, the AI. Before matches, you select certain roles for the AI to take: Infantry, Armor, Air, or Support, as well as define their difficulty. If you wish to have the max player capacity (16), you can set up the AI to take over seven positions on your team, leaving you the role you wish to play as for that battle.
Pro LAN battles between friends and AI
World in Conflict features LAN play with up to 16 players, including AI opponents. This is ideal for large-scale battles among friends and the all-but-forgotten LAN parties of old.
Pro You can set your own goals
While there are a lot of achievements for doing certain things in Iron Man mode, which runs can be tailored towards, and there is a points system allowing you to focus on becoming the "best" in the world, there is no definitive win condition and therefore a lot of players decide their own target for the campaign and focus on that, whether direct conquest or a trade empire or "playing tall" - highly developing a small nation without expanding geographically.
Pro Game features pausing and adjustable speeds
Europa Universalis IV allows you to play straight through in real-time, or pause the game for as much micro-management as needed. With this system in place, everyone can play at their own pace without need for rapid play styles or quick rushing attacks to achieve victory, thus giving players freedom to tackle missions at their own, preferred speed.
Pro Lots of depth
EUIV is a simulation of global politics and war. There is a relatively limited set of choices you can make under normal circumstances: hiring advisors to improve your capabilities, hiring troops, about two dozen diplomatic actions in peace, and a number of different peace deal options when terminating a war. However, these interact to produce a large number of interesting decisions that affect your outcomes.
If you want to annex a neighbor, do you declare a holy war on them, or do you fabricate claims on their territory and demand that they "return" this land to you? Do you ally a much larger nation that might try to force you to be their vassal? Conversely, do you try to improve relations with a much smaller neighbor in order to become their suzerain overlord, or do you attempt to conquer them directly and risk pulling their larger allies into a war?
On top of that, there are hundreds of events that can occur once certain preconditions are met. Some of them are specific to which country you're playing as. Some require you to hire the right set of advisors.
And if you don't keep your country's internal affairs in order, you may find yourself on the wrong end of a peasant's war or facing other national disasters.
Pro You get to chose how to play
You can either expand with colonies, martial might or be peaceful and attempt to ally neighbouring nations.
Cons
Con Lack of multiplayer ranks
No ranking system, which are prevalent in most online experiences, is present in World in Conflict, thus inexperienced players can too easily join in on matches with experienced players. Due to this, matches may be lopsided, especially if one team has more experienced players participating on it, or a team that always plays together.
Con Multiplayer taken offline
On October 6, 2015, Online Multiplayer through Massgate was to be terminated, however the server shutoff was postponed due to public outcry. Since that time, the game no longer connects to Massgate servers and requires players whom wish to experience the online Multiplayer component of World in Conflict to download a mod that re-enables multiplayer once more. Because of this, matches are scarce and is all but dead.
Con No challenges to manage
The designers have dumbed down the game to make it easier for new players to learn, however this makes it less rewarding to experienced players who are looking for a challenge.
Con Weak gameplay
Con Games can take a very long time
Due to the in depth, meticulous gameplay mechanics, the games can take weeks to finish which some people may not have the patience for.
Con Steep learning curve
When you start out, it can be overwhelming. You have a country and three thousand infantrymen -- what can you do? You decide to attack your neighbor -- and they cut you down like reeds. You start over as a bigger country and attack a smaller neighbor -- and suddenly you're in a war against several large countries at once. You start again and this time you find a weak neighbor with no allies. You crush them and bring them under your control -- and suddenly you find revolutions popping up everywhere.
Even after you've learned the basics, you'll still find yourself wondering: if I declare a holy war, will it cost me diplomatic power to annex territory or not? And it's often hard -- certainly in ironman mode -- to undo decisions, so small mistakes and misclicks can end up costing you a lot.
The game does give you guidance in the form of alert bubbles in the upper left of the screen, informing you of the things it thinks are most relevant, and paying attention to those can at least show you what you might want to think about. In the later patches, the user interface has been improving to help reduce surprises -- and the game mechanics as well. For instance, rebel uprising progress can be tracked easily -- you won't be surprised by a sudden uprising of Najdi nationalists, and when you're in for a long-term peasant revolt, the game will tell you why it's happening, how to prevent it, and how to get out of it once it happens.
But simply finding all these parts of the user interface takes time playing. Determining what's important takes experience. You can pause the game at any time and find all the data you can handle, but if you're not just extracting the important parts, the deluge won't help.
Your best bet is to find videos of people playing the game with a bit more skill than you. Streaming is best -- you can ask questions, and most streamers will answer.
Con Math
This game is pure math, like every game. But in this game, you can actually calculate the outcome of an action, which makes the computer (AI) feel dumb.
For example, when you grow, you easily form an alliance with the second largest army on the map, which will accept and let you grow, grow, grow without the slightest clue that he will be next. This is weird.