[2022] Is this base game good?

Not to diminish the value of people's reviews - but they are usually based on very specific things. Broken save files with an update is a common reason for bad reviews. A bug introduced with the update (and probably/hopefully patched away by now).

Or it is one specific change in the update they didn't like - which might play differently now. The point is that the bad reviews are usually not relating to how important owning that specific expansion is to the overall experience today.

We are aware of the quite steep entry cost - which is why we introduced the subscription option for €5 / month to make it a bit more affordable (up front at least) to try out the full EU4 experience.

I hope you will enjoy the game!