> It does feel that Paradox games create a better simulation. I would say it is complicated. On the first look, EU4 is much more realistic and less stylized/sy

> It does feel that Paradox games create a better simulation. I would say it is complicated. On the first look, EU4 is much more realistic and less stylized/symbolic than Civ, but on the second look, Civ (even the first one) has many important game mechanisms just right to express more realistic dynamic behavior. E.g.: waging war in Civ feels costly, as building capacities are used to build units and therefore cannot build civilian improvements, which leads to long-term falling behind. OTOH in EU4, waging war feels cheap, one can lost all its manpower and there are no significant ill effects, and being in peace while on full manpower is just wasting manpower recovery resource. Even better example is city/province development, where Civ has natural growth, diminishing returns from growth and different results for each city based on local geography and infrastructure, in EU4 it is just paid monarch points and linear effects. One can have satistying pacifist play of Civ, while pacifist play of EU4 would be exremely boring.