When comparing Grey Goo vs Europa Universalis IV, the Slant community recommends Europa Universalis IV for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Europa Universalis IV is ranked 55th while Grey Goo is ranked 171st. The most important reason people chose Europa Universalis IV is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Balanced asymmetric races
Each of the three races have their own powers and weaknesses, which makes for asymmetric gameplay due in part to how each is balanced. Relying partially on a rock, paper, scissors approach, each faction has power over the others in some way, as well as exploitable weakness. Thus, when choosing a race, the player has to keep in mind what they need to do in order to defeat the other races, which results in different and unique play styles, increasing strategic longevity of the title.
Pro Accessible gameplay
Being that this is designed to be a traditional RTS game, fans of the genre should find the the gameplay familiar and easily accessible.
Pro Polished design
The graphics look great and look to be designed with care. There are plenty of tutorial pop-ups as well, which enhances the overall design and polish, as it alleviates any confusion players may have mid-match.
Pro Great map editor
Users can create their own maps with the custom map editor, which makes for a ton of longevity to the game as players can create their own maps to play on.
Pro Great soundtrack
The soundtrack features different music for each of the three available races. All of it is done well and feels as though it fits with each race making for a more immersive experience.
Pro Clever AI
The AI in Ashes of the Singularity is programmed quite well, allowing it to detect a player's weakness and using that to its advantage. Allowing the AI to have the same advantages that regular human opponents receive, in regards to Player Power Level and Mini-Map expansion detection, this keeps the player on their toes and makes for challenging single player action.
Pro Amazing building shortcuts
It's super easy to quickly select and build a specific unit and/or building, thanks to the excellent build menu.
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 Terrible UI
User interface is terrible: it's hard to select units and the cursor frequently gets stuck on other functions.
Con Can't change game speed
There's no way to slow down or speed up game speed.
Con Region locked
The matchmaking component of this title suffers from the region locking instituted upon it. Due to this constraint, finding players and getting into matches can be a issue, and take a great deal more time, as you will be unable to look for anyone outside of your respective region.
Con Lack of replays and spectator mode
There is no replay feature in the game, which means users will not be able to look back at previous matches, nor is there a spectator mode to allow others to view a match in progress.
Con Maximum of four players for multiplayer is limiting
The game's multiplayer greatness is stymied due to the limit on the maximum number of players being only four. With the only large-scale battles limited to 2v2 game types, players hoping to have more epic battles and play with more friends will unfortunately have to look elsewhere.
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.