EU5 made a very bold choice in bringing back the start date to 1337, considering that EU4 really hit it's stride in the 1500s and most players wouldn't play more than 150 years. This could be fine if the extra 100 years is filled with interesting content to keep the player engaged, but unfortunately this has not panned out. You'll find that the late medieval period has little going on, and worst of all the addition of hourly ticks in a 500 year game makes this boring period feel excruciating because of how much those extra ticks pad the game time. In the time that the average EU4 player would finish a campaign you will still be in the first 100 years of the game in the late medieval times. I was playing on fast speeds and after over 20 hours of playtime I was still in the Age of Renaissance.

In the age of discovery your options open up with better technology to allow you to do more. However if you've been playing the game remotely competently then the game is pretty much over because the AI cannot properly oppose you. The AI has no direction in terms of expansion with the removal of mission trees and the whole situation system does little to shake things up because they don't work properly or the AI doesn't know how to use them.

The game promises a lot of content but when you look closer at it you realize how shallow it is. Thousands of events it claims, but it's all just different versions of "-10 noble happiness, -7 stab, +30 gold, etc" You'll find that you're doing the same thing as most nations, and the concept of doing the same thing over again playing through 20+ hours of nothing just to have no competition when the game starts opening up is not appealing at all.

I played Austria for 20 hours and was unable to even deck a war because casus bellis are limited early on. 20 hours of just constructing buildings hoping something would change. I've had more fun watching grass grow.

Release date today, boyos.
Where we dropping?