At a glance...

Previewer	Platform	Publisher	Developer	Players	Release Date
Richard Pilot	PC/Mac	Paradox Interactive	Paradox Development Studio	1-32 (Online, Hotseat)	Q3 2013

Europa Universalis IV preview

After visiting Paradox yesterday, I'm a little ashamed that I had never come across the Europa Universalis franchise before. As a fan of complex strategy games like Civilisation, the level of detail in this the latest entry in series really jumped out at me. Players of the previous game are probably already very familiar with this franchise, but we'll go into a little bit of detail about Europa Universalis for the uninitiated. Its the game that kick started Paradox back when they formed, and they consider it to be the original Paradox game. At its heart, it is a real time strategy game where you choose to become a country and then attempt to run its growing (or shrinking) empire with a variety of tools, such research, diplomacy, the military and trade. Although EU is a real time game, players are able to pause the action whenever they like, as well as slowing the game down or speeding it up to let events play out.

So Europa Universalis III has been around for a while and despite the fact that Paradox loved how this game and its expansions were received, they felt that the UI had gotten a little cluttered. More importantly, they felt that the game had become too complex for its own good. Paradox Interactive decided to take a step back and look at all the systems that were in the game, with the focus being on maintaining only a relevant level of complexity. That is, only allowing a system to be in place, if it was justified. They have spent a lot of time working on the graphics for EU IV and it shows. The graphics are significantly improved with an impressive representation of the world (although we focused on Europe). It was pleasantly detailed with mountains rising nicely at the Alps, reflections in the water and birds flying over the map ("Look at the Seagulls", exclaims Lead Programmer, Thomas Johansson).

Thomas was keen to emphasise the game's focus on true history, so as you play the game, if what you happen to be doing at the time relates to a real world event, a popup will provide more information about the historical context beyond your decisions. It's a nice touch and really helps you develop an appreciation of how they're trying to get you to consider these real world issues.

Next, he demonstrated Monarch Power. He wanted to avoid situations where you get into a winning streak, he thinks players would find that boring as there's no real challenge. He wanted to prevent a country being so strong that no-one could beat it. To account for this, the various people that will effectively represent you have different strengths and abilities, and due to the lengthy time period over which the game takes place, many of these characters will live and die over the course of a single game. The example that he used was where you were a king and you have fathered several sons. When the king dies, you take on the role of one of these sons and now family bonds become broken and you have a whole bunch of new enemies to contend with. He wanted to stress that this wasn't a full dynasty system but was there to constantly challenge players. It's not just diplomatic relationships that this can effect, but how you play too. For example, if the character that takes over doesn't like to go to war then you need to take that into consideration in developing your strategy. He gave the example of building this vast military empire and then taking over the role of an adviser or administrator. So while you have all the resources that this original character had, the way that you now have to play and the challenges that you face are different.

The final bit that we talked about was trade, he thought that this had gotten a little silly in previous titles. In EU IV, trade is represented by lines running across countries and around continents. Arrows moving along these lines, indicate where this trade was heading, with the idea being that you try to manipulate the situation so that the trade all heads to you. Control of trade routes are therefore very important and he emphasised how it could be important to build a fleet if you were, say, Venice. This would ensure that you control a key point on the map and that would influence trade. He then referred to some historical events where this had happened.

Europa Universalis IV is looking great. As someone who had never encountered this series before it really caught me by surprise. It will feature a multiplayer mode with matchmaking and the option to have standalone servers with up to 32 players in one game. I look forward to seeing these complex system working in the full game who's launch is currently being aimed for Q3 2013.

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