This is probably my favorite game ever (as you can likely tell from the over 1,000 hours of game time). You can pick any date in the almost 400 years that this game spans and play any country that existed at the time.

The best part about this is how awesome Paradox (the developer) is. They are constantly updating this 5 year old game. Sometimes they release DLC, but there's always free content along with them. And if the DLC is a little expensive, they always go on sale within a month or two.

However, a lot of times they just release huge updates for free. An example is right now. They are working on Paid DLC for Europe, but because it's taking them so long, they snuck in the equivalent of a DLC for Eastern Asia and just released it to everyone for free.

This game is addicting and very much a "one more turn" type game where it's hard to stop playing. The game is not turned based, but can be paused or sped up, as needed.

While the game is definitely worth full price, I recommend waiting to get it on sale. Every few weeks it'll go on sale at 75% off, along with most of the older DLC (and I recommend getting all of the game-play based ones, the content packs and the music, only change graphics and sound. Those are best to get once you fall in love with the game and just want to support the developers). Even newer DLC will be 25-50% off.

Tl;dr: GET THIS GAME!!!