It doesn’t entirely succeed at this, however, because EU4’s idea of coalition warfare neither promotes great power conflict as it existed historically, nor does it deter particularly clever players from dominating the world. Frederick’s acquisition of Silesia unsettled international opinion by “changing permanently the political balance within the Holy Roman Empire and thrusting Prussia into a dangerous new world of great power politics.” Europa Universalis 4, as far as I’m aware, is one of the few sandbox-style grand strategy games to attempt to simulate coalition warfare. I mention the history of the Seven Years War because it’s such a great example of the perils of international politics in 18th century Europe. The Seven Years War that followed, according to Christopher Clark, “happened because these Austrian and Russian calculations became entangled with the escalating global conflict between Britain and France.”
This infuriated his French ally and drove them into the arms of the Habsburgs. Deeply alarmed by the threat of Russia on his eastern border, Frederick the Great made a further miscalculation by signing a hasty and open-ended agreement with Britain. In 1746, Austria and Russia entered into an alliance a secret clause envisioned the partition of the Prussian monarchy. But it also created a potentially dangerous situation. The historian Christopher Clark called it an extraordinary coup never before had a lowly German principality successfully challenged a European potentate so rudely. Contemporary observers were amazed by the combination of the campaign’s “speed and success,” along with the apparent mismatch in the size between the two opposing forces. Acting with a “spontaneity verging on recklessness,” he decided to invade the province of Silesia and pry it from the hands of the Habsburg monarch. In December of 1740, the newly crowned King in Prussia Frederick the Great made a decision that transformed the entire fortune of his realm.
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