It was only a matter of time: just two weeks on from the launch of Europa Universalis 5, a player has managed to complete a ‘world conquest’ run in Paradox Tinto’s grand strategy game. In case the name didn’t give it away, the impressive feat involves taking over the entire planet, removing all tags other than your nation and your non-tributary subjects. While it comes with a few small caveats due to technical issues and crashes, we’ve now got our first confirmed EU5 world conquest, and it looks like an absolute nightmare to pull off.
The run in question comes from ‘ThePlaymaker’ on YouTube, who has been grinding their way through Europa Universalis 5 since launch. It wasn’t their first attempt at the achievement, which has long been among the ultimate challenges for EU4 players. For the ultimately successful playthrough, they started out as Barlas, then became Timurids, before forming the Holy Roman Empire. From here, they claimed the Mandate of Heaven and swapped to Muscovite culture, which allowed them to stack a more-than-100% proximity cost reduction.
It does come with some slight caveats. While EU4’s ‘World Conqueror’ achievement required an Ironman playthrough, ThePlaymaker notes that they didn’t do so here because “I started the run when you needed to [use] console for the faster ticks.” They also ended up using the console to annex a small number of tags that were previous tributaries at the end of the campaign. This was because “my game would crash every month,” they explain, “although I could have easily finished it, so I feel fine about it.”
You can watch the entire run on YouTube, although ThePlaymaker also promises an edited video talking about the experience soon. It’s certainly an achievement to be proud of, but my main takeaway is that it doesn’t seem like a particularly fun way to play, especially given the technical troubles, and many commenters are in agreement. “Good shit man,” one user on Reddit writes, “watched like 80% of the run, shit looked like absolute hell.”
Another remarks, “Doing WC in EU5 seems like an even bigger chore and annoyance than in EU4.” Now that we know it’s possible, however, I’m sure players will find ways to get there faster, much as they did with its predecessor. In Paradox’s defense, world conquest has always been more of a self-imposed challenge than the way Europa Universalis is ‘meant’ to be played. Hopefully that means the developer won’t go too out of their way trying to counteract this, in a manner that impacts us everyday sorts who gently prod at our empire with something between vague intent and mild confusion.
