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

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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.

A Modest Proposal: Why not just give them access to death lasers? That makes about as much historical sense as a "playable Aztecs." How about adding some flying dragons! That would be fun. (It would actually).

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. Without that, the Native Americans would still be the dominant culture today, and there would be about as many people of European descent in North and South America today as there are in the former "Dutch East Indies", or in China.

This turns EUIV into a fantasy game, which is not all bad. I LIKE fantasy games. An EUIV set in Middle Earth would be a blast.

But, let's call this what it is. Why stop with a random map? If you're going whole hog into a fantasy world with random generated continents, why stop with the Americas? Why not a fully RANDOM world generated map? Why not randomize other aspects of the game?

Seriously? Why not randomize the entire world map? Now that would be a difference! I for one would buy that game and pay a full new game price for it. (They'd have to add some new content for the fantasy countries).

Is it so that gamers can pretend it's got some tenuous connection with historicity when all such has been clearly abandoned?

In any game which models, however tenuously, the actual historical conditions of the age of Exploration and discovery, the New World Natives had no chance, because their populations immediately began dying of horrific epidemics when the Spaniards arrived. In game terms this is reflected in the fact that they are terribly weak and easy to conquer. (You'd be easy to conquer too if you were suffering from Smallpox).

It's difficult to see what could have saved them, unless they would have built a huge navy and sunk every European explorer in the sea before he could land and infect them.

 

[CalMau5]

Awesome, love it when you guys do dlc Especially when you're kind enough to give people who don't want to buy it some of the features. Can't wait to get it!!!!

 

[minke19104]

Would the end date be pushed further towards late 19th century?

 

[Johan]

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.

 

[sotero]

Sweet. Sounds like challenge.

 

[IndoEsia45]

Wow if PI has managed to add randomized map then I can see a lot of great potentials in the future, especially if it can be customized and modded. Random Europe? Random Asia? etc.

Just imagine playing a complete random world and borders in one game with existing nations like in Civ.

 

[Johan]

Is the randomized New World compatible with Ironman?

should be.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Awesome expansion, can't wait! Will it be possible to use the regular New World layout and just randomize the resource placement?

 

[oilers41]

There was a rather long thread on this during eu4 development. I can honestly say I was hoping for this expansion more than anything else that could have come out. I am beyond excited about this! Take my money now!

 

[minke19104]

Dear Paradox,

Why not just make a randomized Earth that we can play in? I'll gladly pay another $4.99 for that...

Yours..

 

[americanu197]

it would be nice if besides randomizing the new world we could have like a decision each european nation with a port can take to send someone to find a new route to "India" and that sets off a chain of events that will drive those explorers anywhere up and down the coast of the americas

 

[YF-23]

How will you deal with the country select screen? Will you have (pressumably toggleable) TI on it? Even if you make the randomisation only take place after starting the game up there's still the save game country select screen which could "spoil" the NW layout.

 

[caeppers]

This is already way better than what I had hoped for in a colonization DLC, looking forward to it!

 

[Captain Gars]

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.

 

[Will Lucky]

yes

Oh excellent, going to have to get another multiplayer game going with a few buddies of mine. This ought to making a competitive colonization game interesting.

 

[Nodscouterr]

Out of curiosity, is it based on or just a similar idea to this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-Colonial-Overhaul-for-Europa-Universalis-IV- ?

 

[Fintilgin]

This is clearly the greatest expansion in the history of expansions! Could not be happier!


Is there any chance that a random New World will result in the natives (rarely) getting a higher tech level? So 70% of the time they have 'New World' Tech, 20% 'East Asian' level tech, and 10% 'Sunset Invasion' tech? That'd be even more awesome.

 

[Vedinu]

I can't wait! This sounds great.

Edit: Will there be a physical copy of this?

 

[hwoosh]

A Modest Proposal: . . .

Show me the game mechanic where EU4 explicitly models plague, and I'll believe you that this expansion is inconsistent with the devs' plans for the game.

I can't believe some people are actually against more flavor.

 

[Pornek]

Not a big fan of colonization, but then again maybe thats exactly what is needed to make me a fan.
Anyways more content is always good. Im looking forward to the next dev diary episode.