To be fair, the M&T team, with their broad mandate of “add everything”, definitely improved areas neglected by Paradox. The game is quite a bit slower than vanilla, and it’s almost impossible to remain stable enough for multiplayer to be a viable possibility. With all those new provinces, countries, mechanics – new everything – the M&T team put Paradox’s Clausewitz engine under heavy strain.

Unfortunately, this ethos – one of slavish devotion to historical accuracy to the detriment of gameplay – is perpetuated throughout the mod. It chokes and lags a little just looking around on the “country select” screen. Contiguous provinces aren’t just more attractive, they’re necessary for the game to work properly. It, like the rest of the European map, conforms to feudal law and historical holdings, but makes little sense within the context of EU4. Note the green splotches, for example – that’s a single province, composed of exclaves within and around several others.

The above is a screenshot of the area around the modern Franco-German border, using M&T’s map. Its bizarre name is the result of combining the teams behind two EUIII megamods, MEIOU and Death & Taxes. The main M&T thread proudly boasts of its “970 new provinces and 450 new nations”, with a huge emphasis on historical accuracy. The end result of such a focus is this: MEIOU and Taxes (hereafter M&T) is most expansive and popular EU4 mod. Two of these mods grew to such size and popularity that they have their own subforums on the official Paradox message board: MEIOU and Taxes and Veritas et Fortitudo. There are, of course, other mods worth playing, such as Occultis Orbis Terrestre and various smaller alterations. Still, a great deal of work is out there, and a bigger map – EU4 expands from CK2’s Europe to the entire planet – breeds bigger ambitions. Paradox Entertainment released Europa Universalis IV last year, so it consequently suffers from a smaller mod selection as compared to Crusader Kings 2.

Mods for europa universalis 4