Paradox feels your pain. The din of gamers wanting to get into their grand strategy games, but unable to get over the hump of hundreds of dollars worth of DLC, (I’m looking at you, Crusader Kings 2) has been heard. It can be daunting to try a Paradox game that’s been around for a few years. Which packs are “essential” and which are mere cosmetic foofery? Rejoice, you cash-strapped folks! Paradox is testing a subscription model.
“A subscription model has been suggested to us on many occasions, so we thought we’d run a test to see how popular such a service would be.”
The latest update for Europe Universalis IV includes hooks for the subscription test. According to the team, the cost hasn’t been nailed down, and only a limited group of people will be included in the test. Not surprisingly, the developers tried to keep details of the update a secret, but the persistent gamers figured it out.
Paradox releases Europa Universalis IV’s Common Sense DLC today. Let’s look at their description and see if we can figure out what it has to do with the Thomas Paine tract that encouraged the American Revolution.
Central to Common Sense is the idea of Development your provinces are now more than an all powerful tax number. You can improve your regions based on tax, trade and military power specifically, giving each a focus or strength. Or, you can develop broadly to prevent crushing losses when a center of manpower falls to the enemy. Were also introducing Parliaments, allowing constitutional systems of government new ways to put the power of the peoples representatives to work on behalf of the nation for a price.
There is a host of other changes to the game, including improvements to the Protestant religion, the creation of national churches, karma for Buddhist rulers and much, much more.
I’m sure Thomas Paine would be proud of something in there. Even if you don’t get the DLC, the latest patch changes plenty of stuff. For instance, it reworks how armies move. You can no longer freely charge past forts. They’ll now interrupt the movement of armies, which is what forts should have been doing all along. Now that’s what I call common sense.
Also, fish no longer reduce unrest. They just make it cheaper to persuade people to adopt a new culture. Seafood ain’t what it used to be. The full patch notes are here.
Paradox announces the next add-on for Europa Universalis IV will be called El Dorado.
This expansion’s historical focus on the Central American and South American theaters of exploration will challenge you with new decisions worthy of a king or conqueror. As the Aztecs, subject the Mexican plain to your rule but make sure you have enough vassal kings to sacrifice to your angry gods. As the Europeans, push deeper into the jungles of the Amazon, following rumors of lost cities and magical fountains.
I don’t recommend that latter course of action. You’ll just end up in charge of a raft full of monkeys. Also included in El Dorado will be the option to design your own custom nation and monarch. Because for some people, history isn’t enough.
Paradox Interactive announced their first expansion for Europa Universalis IV. The Conquest of Paradise will give players a new world to explore – literally. The expansion will generate a “completely randomized” version of America for players to explore and conquer with every new game. Would-be rulers can also play as a Native American or Colonial nation and try to break free of the yoke of the mother country. In the first dev diary, Paradox explained some of the new gameplay.
“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).”
Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise will launch on December 11th.
Paradox released a gigantic patch for Europa Universalis IV yesterday. The free 1.2 update has a massive changelog which can be found on the official forums. It adds a lot of convenience and interface features as well as patching up a long list of bugs. You won’t get immortal Cardinals in your game any longer and Unam Sanctam has been renamed to Deus Vult, which should excite everyone, right? More importantly, Paradox added five new Steam achievements to the game including this gem:
Luck of the Irish – Conquer all the British isles as an Irish country
As mentioned by Tom, you can’t just cheese this achievement by knocking the difficulty down to easy. No blarney! You’ll have to grind your way through it the manly way.
In related news, Paradox also released the American Dream and National Monuments 2 DLC which can be purchased directly from the publisher as well as through Steam.
