Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise expansion– Developer diary 1

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Besuchov

Studio Manager, PDS
Paradox Staff
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Mar 6, 2001
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So, the time has come to announce the first expansion for our empire-building game Europa Universalis IV. As you all know, Europa Universalis IV is a game where you can play any country in the world. However the main focus has always been on Europe (hence Europa Universalis ), but now the time has come to move that focus a little, across the Atlantic. It’s time to do the Conquest of Paradise!

Finding Paradise
Are you ready to explore a brave new world? Personally, a lot of the fun in playing Europa Universalis is the first X in the term ‘4x’, eXploration and sending explorers out to discover new continents. If you play a nation in Europe close to the sea, you will send out an explorer to find America or the route to India. However, when it comes to true exploration, as opposed to real world explorers, you as a player have an advantage - because you would know where you should go to find a new continent. Most Europa Universalis IV players, unlike most 15th century explorers, have a rough idea about where America is - so some of the excitement in exploration is lost.
Therefore, in Conquest of Paradise, you as a player will have the option of completely randomizing the new world. We wanted you to have the option to really explore a brand new continent. So for the first time ever in a Paradox Development Studio game, you can now choose to discover a completely randomized American continent. Therefore, when Columbus sets sails across the ocean, he might just find some nice islands that he can use as a stopover on his route to India or something completely different…

The Inhabitants of Paradise
Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise will have some interesting new options for America’s original inhabitants. Another aspect of having the design focus on the game in the old world is the fact that the pacing of the game is optimized for the old world powers. The downside of this is that while it can be a lot of fun and a big challenge to play the Native Americans, you might find that it takes a very long time between those satisfying clicks to get a new technology, a new idea or even to create buildings.
To address this, we are adding lots of new and interesting things for the Native Americans to do in this expansion. We want to make the gameplay between the tribes more exciting and to help you maneuver yourself into a better position, should the pale barbarians come across the sea. The expansion makes it possible for you to play as a Native American nation and create an empire in early America. If you take on the role of a Native American tribe in Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise, you will have some interesting new tools in the expanded Native American gameplay mechanics, new tribes, a chance to form federations with your peers, new events, ideas and buildings. We´ll tell you more about this later on ;)

Conquering Paradise
It’s time to explore a more interesting America. In Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise, managing your overseas colonies is going to get a bit more interesting. When you send lots of people across the sea in the age of sail, controlling them might not be the easiest thing in the world. With this expansion, your colonies in the Americas will take on a new form; the larger ones will actually become free nations that serve as your colonies. They will have a limited independence and you can get money and trade power from them, but they will also live their own life, colonizing, fighting Native Americans and maybe even rebelling and striving for liberty from their motherland. You can squeeze them hard if you want, but then you might get into trouble down the line (or you can just change sides and play as a colony).

DLCs and Free stuff
Naturally, we at Paradox Development Studio are continuing the model used in Crusader Kings II. So in addition to the expansion, we are working on lots of completely free gameplay features (in addition to bug fixes, of course).
Even if you don’t buy the expansion, you will get completely new map modes, more playable nations, colonial nations and much more. Also, don’t worry about MP: just like in Crusader Kings II, if the host has the expansion – everyone in the MP session can use the gameplay features of Conquest of Paradise.
We will reveal more in-depth information about the brand new gameplay features weekly up until the release on December 11th, so be on the look-out!

And a picture of Columbus discovering...something
:)

Columbus_is_discovering_what.jpg
 
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Johan's twitter reaction to this post makes me wonder if this is an elaborate ruse before the true reveal.

nah, this is it... something I've wanted since the earliest design of eu3.! I'm just excited as hell about it.
 
Awww, you could have gone a bit bolder and randomize the Old World as well.

But Bravo, now Exploration will feel like Exploration without us relying on our knowledge of world geography to figure out the most efficient island-hopping routes... ;)

How much of the "New World" is really randomizable, btw? Just the Americas, or do the parts of Africa and Oceania get randomized as well?

And what would happen to the startup screen, where it shows the entire world without terra incognita? Does that mean we can still cheat or ....

Just the americas atm.
 
Sounds cool, but can we play with the other features without a randomized America? - (It's cool if you like a random America, but I don't.)

Yes. Its an option.
 
It was possible to colonize and completely replace Native Americans for only 1 reason and it's not technology: 90% of their populations died of European diseases for which they had no immunities within 100 years of first contact.

The scientific community will be thrilled to hear these conclusions.
 
One other question - will the Expansion make an effort to represent Native Americans with more accuracy, diversity and complexity than how they are currently depicted? If so, how big a goal is this of the project?

Tweaked map with some new provinces and lots more playable nations :)
 
Kind of wondering, does new world mean new "fantasy" native nations? Or it will be Aztecs, Mayans, Inca's with new position's and sizes?

No fantasy nations. Random new world will use the existing ones (which have been increased in numbers).
 
Sounds really excellent guys, well done and I can't wait!

I'm particularly interested to see what comes under "improved colonial warfare." Right now I, amongst quite a few other people, have been a bit frustrated with colonial warfare in EU4, because of the usual issues with OExt and Coring time. We are actively encouraged to wage colonial war (automatic CB, low WS cost per colony), but as soon as those colonies are cored by their original owners, we get massive OExt and massive Admin point cost + coring time wait. So ultimately colonial wars can feel not much different to central Europe wars - fighting lots to take just a small number of provinces each time, then waiting up to a decade before OExt is down.

So I am crossing my fingers that this will be addressed and restrictions for colonial conquest relaxed in the expansion.

Actually one issue sounds like it might definitely be fixed - a big problem with current colonial wars is that, once you take those huge OExt provinces, there's no vassals to feed them to. For example, if England takes Caribbean provinces from Portugal, which has cored them, it can't then release any of them as vassals, and there's no existing vassal nations nearby to feed them. But if the new expansion is going to have all colonies in effect be vassals, then of course this is mitigated (as long as we can sell to them as we do normal vassals.)

But I do still hope that OExt/Coring times are worked on for colonies. It would be awesome if colonial wars felt quite different and less limited than mainland-Europe wars: and that would be a great compromise in the current "Direct conquest vs Vassal Feeding" debate: central Europe conquest is very slow, lots of AE, Oext, coring times, but New World is free and more wild. That would work!

Will you be boosting the base Diplomatic Relations to handle all the new colonial vassals we'll now have? We won't be able to survive with just the base of 4! :) (Or maybe colonies will be a special kind of vassal that don't need DipRelations? In which case, please do still allow them to buy provinces like a normal vassal! :) )

Thanks again guys, really excited.

I can't give away everything yet, but I can tell you that you'll be happy with the design when we present how the colonies work.
 
It's still early, but can we get an estimated price range for the expansion?
And if possible, a small discount for owners of EU4 would be nice :)

think 15€ or so.. same price as old gods.
 
Any Chance we could get a randomized "old world" down the road with the tech you're introducing in "conquest of paradise"? or would that be reinventing the wheel in terms of coding?

I think it be really enjoyable to mix up the old world as well as the new.

I'm pretty certain it takes a modder just a few hours to set it up though.
 
What I really want to know is the colony stuff :p
And precisely I hope they will not put the same colonies only depending of the region.
I mean if Canada is colonised by French I hope to see a New-France/Québec dominion ; if it is by British, I want to see a Canada dominion ; if it is by Scandinavian, I want Vinland etc....
I'm not asking for 100 localized colonies for a country but at least I'd say 5-6 by culturegroup.

:)
 
I can only hope that "colonial dependancies" doesn't mean "Colombia is now a colony of yours". It would be nefarious. I'm hoping for the viceroyalties of New Spain, Perú and Rio de la Plata, for instance. New England and New France, etc.

:)