Friday Games: Europa Universalis IV
In 1492, Columbus created the four-day weekend. (MIT students don’t have classes this coming Monday and Tuesday!) I’ve been meaning to check out Europa Universalis IV since it came out in August. Having been thoroughly baffled by Victoria and EU3 but impressed by the buzz around the recent Crusader Kings II, this latest grand strategy game by Paradox Interactive warrants at least a tutorial playthrough. It is, after all, about the Age of Exploration.
The plan is to start the stream in the early afternoon and report about the state of the simulated world at 4pm ET in MIT room 26-153. Expect a little noise leaking in from Intel Extreme Masters tournament to keep me sane while I figure out how to read the giant spreadsheet that is Europa Universalis IV.
Philip Tan is the creative director for the MIT Game Lab. He teaches CMS.608 Game Design and CMS.611J/6.073J Creating Video Games at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the past 6 years, he was the executive director for the US operations of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, a game research initiative. He complements a Master's degree in Comparative Media Studies with work in Boston's School of Museum of Fine Arts, the MIT Media Lab, WMBR 88.1FM and the MIT Assassins' Guild, the latter awarding him the title of "Master Assassin" for his live-action roleplaying game designs. He also founded a DJ crew at MIT.