Sure. They get you interested about history and make you start asking questions.

I played them all and while there are a lot of intentional and unintentional errors and inaccuracies in all those titles, i still think they have a good portion of educational value. Playing those games and seeing the start conditions of some nation while knowing how they would rise or fall in the decades and centuries to come is not only fun to replay but also let's you dig deeper into the matter to find out what circumstances led to the historical outcome. Especially if there are certain scripted events, that not only give flavor and context, but also try to steer the game in a historical direction.

I find this especially interesting in the Europa Universalis series where you can witness the rise of some upstart nations (Brandenburg/Prussia, Austria, Muscowy/Russia,...) and the fall of others (Golden Horde, al-Andalus, Burgundy,...)

I witnessed myself several times roaming through Wikipedia in the browser while running the game in the background. Crusader Kings 2 even had a special button which linked to the wiki articles of important characters and you could compare your career with the historical original. What a great idea from Paradox (developer).

But if your question is: Could this be used to teach students in school or even college? ...I would have to say no. It's more suited for a layman who has interest in this game genre and history at the same time, while having the patience to actually learn those games (they are pretty hard for beginners).

Yes, absolutely. While they fall into "alternate history" worlds almost immediately, they do the following right:

1. CK2 will give you the general outlines for inheritance laws and pretenders to a claim.

2. EU4 has baked in historical events for all the major countries in the world. From the stuff you already know about (Unification of Aragon and Castile) to really obscure things like the mountain fortress heirs were kept in in Ethiopia.

3. The systems they use in EU4 are deliberately game-y (comets, ugh), but are intended to reflect historical reality at some level. The Aggressive Expansion diplomatic penalty represents the leeriness other countries will have towards a Hitler or Genghis Khan, and encourage coalitions against them to keep them in check, which happened pretty regularly in Europe during and after the War of Spanish Succession, with the Balance of Power concept.

4. Diplomacy, declaring war, and declaring peace is pretty broken in their games, though, when it comes to coalitions. The Peace of Westphalia is something next to impossible to simulate in the game, though their most recent patch attempts to do just that. Historical diplomatic penalties and bonuses can give you a feel for how countries historically treated each other.

5. Economics and technology are abstracted too much, IMO. Trade is slightly better with trade routes and privateering now in the game, but still much more game-y than realistic.

6. Continent wide events like the Reformation and Counter-Reformation are actually handled pretty well. Every Catholic country prior to the reformation will periodically get events in which they can take short term gains of money or influence, but this drives up the worldwide Reform counter. The higher it goes, you'll start getting people like Hus and Luther, and provinces will start spontaneously converting to Protestantism. As a ruler, you can choose to go with the wave of popular opinion, like the German princes did, or embrace orthodoxy like Spain.

I could go on, but ultimately the upshot is that as long as you're willing to accept the fact that a lot of this sort of stuff is gameified, the Paradox games really can teach you quite a bit about history. I use EU4 terms in conversations with my wife to elucidate things that actually happened in history.

Like a couple of people have said already, yes, historical games do have some limited educational value in that they can provide a base of knowledge from which to dive into real learning. Just the other day I got an enormous pop-up in Europa Universalis 4 telling me all about the French Wars of Religion, which I knew next to nothing about and have now done a little reading on. I knew next to nothing about Carthage before I played Rome: Total War- ended up writing my dissertation about their force projection in the Second Punic War. Games can be fantastic ways to springboard into a topic, there's no doubt about that.

The thing that absolutely must be stressed (and part of me wishes there was a historical disclaimer along these lines in games!), though, is that games are by their very nature systemic. They are driven by rules and systems, and would not be very good games if they weren't! The problem arises when people assume that the systems created by necessity are accurately modelling the time period in question. This sort of thing gets brought up on r/badhistory quite a lot- people play a game like Civilization and end up assuming that history, development and progress are linear. Knowledgeable people on this very sub will tell you in great detail how "the feudal system" was in actuality a huge variety of different ways of doing things, and that the way it is popularly understood really only applied in parts of France, but Crusader Kings 2 applies it across the length of the relevant world, from Iceland to India, from the age of Charlemagne til after the fall of Constantinople. This works as a game, and CK2's popularity attests that, as a game system, it is hugely successful- a great way to systemically generate stories and conflict. It is not, however, accurate to assume that the same systems of obligation were in place across the time period and area in question. History is much much messier than that.

as a teacher and history person i agree with a lot of this. but i'd also add its not the game that makes it educational. its how its used. i currently teach geography to 13yo students and we're using Civ 5 to look at how resource scarcity and landscape and impact a civilization. some kids don't completely get to that high level of thinking, but the game helps them see real outcomes instead of abstractly envisioning it.

Personal story:

I've got a BA in history and working towards a major and I think my early interest in history was spawned when I read the encyclopedia in Age of Empires 2. It were cool stories with at least some base in reality. I was like 10 years or something.

But I don't think that they should be used as a teaching tool. They can push interest, but for actual valuable information on a scientific base they fall short (which is no wonder).

Absolutely, yes. They're great for getting people interested in history. Rome Total war and the EB mod was a significant factor in inspiring me to dive as deep into the study of history as I did. Even games like Assassin's Creed are good; they present a fictional story line in a relatively accurate historical world (small things do crop up; the most egregious being Rome's baroque architecture when it should be the 16th century.) If it gets people interested in real history, why not?

I myself can't play historical anymore, I go nuts over pedantic inaccuracies (Really Paradox? The Obertenghi are courtiers in Lombardy in 1066? Come on!)

Thanks everyone for your replies