Europa Universalis IV is an RTS based on a world domination board game. Taking place in Europe between 1444 and 1820 you control any European nation or state of your choosing (there are literally hundreds of choices you can make) and set to work. You can go for military domination, ally with your nearest and dearest geographical allies, or simply rake in the profit from high taxes and lucrative trade routes.

"Europa Universalis IV had a tutorial that was more like a slap in the face: Painful, flat and leaving a lot of questions unanswered. "

The victory conditions are much less defined than the Civ series, but your goals have an agile quality that is often satisfying. You can select missions from a list that reflect your nation’s prerogatives, and you’re free to ignore or reap the benefits from these missions as you please. There’s plenty of depth with a system like this in place, but learning the ropes was a slow burn.

As with all strategy games, you start with a tutorial. Unlike the gentle and soothing experience of learning Civ 4 and 5, Europa Universalis IV had a tutorial that was more like a slap in the face: Painful, flat and leaving a lot of questions unanswered. After an hour of partially informative text, I was ready to throw the towel in and slap a sub-par score on Europa Universalis IV.

Not satisfied to banish Europa Universalis IV unfairly, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and launched a real game. I picked Spain, hoping to take advantage of their size and military abundance and, being a good history student, launched a two pronged attack of allying with Portugal and invading Granada. While annexing my Granadan neighbours though, Aragon invaded me and wiped out my weakened armies. Why? Because Aragon really hated Spain in 1478. It was unfair, swift but delightfully accurate. I had to hand it to Europa Universalis IV, I died through my own bull-headedness. Nothing more.

"The depth, strategy and tactical variety on offer is unparalleled, but Europa Universalis is a game that is often enjoyable in spite of itself. "

My second game was far more interesting. Spain again, I rushed the Aragonese threat, forged a political allegiance with Muscovy and managed to marry into the British royal family. My knowledge of 16th century European history isn’t exhaustive, but I know enough to realise that things didn’t happen that way.

Europa Universalis IV is happy to accommodate these what-if scenarios whilst maintaining a pleasant level of historical realism. The English still didn’t trust my rule, resulting in riots and civil unrest. Throw in the in-fighting I was forced into as Muscovy’s ally and you have a hell of a game to endure. I lost, of course, but it’s the most fun I’ve had being invaded in quite some time.

The depth, strategy and tactical variety on offer is unparalleled, but Europa Universalis is a game that is often enjoyable in spite of itself. Even after learning the game through trial and error, the interface never felt particular intuitive. Clunky menus hoard screen real estate, and the reams of text display in a small font that is tough to read on any resolution setting. It isn’t so bad when you learn where everything is, but those first few games are arduous exercises in squinting your eyes.

"Europa Universalis is like the model train set of strategy gaming. It doesn't look especially fun to an outsider, but those who are in on it will find that the attention to detail is an impossibly pleasing call to action."

Add in some mechanics that are far more obscure than they need to be (mostly the trading systems), and you have a game that often feels a little bit too much like hard work. It is infinitely rewarding when your work pays off, but those looking for quick bursts of fun won’t find it here.

When it comes to crowd-pleasing, Europa Universalis 4 doesn’t make much of an effort at all. Repetitive music and sound effects become irritating after a short while, and visuals remain fairly flat. It’s in the graphics that Europa Universalis’ board game roots come to the fore. The visuals represent a glorified game board and, as kinetic as they try to be, animations and visual details are unimpressive at best.

Europa Universalis is like the model train set of strategy gaming. It doesn’t look especially fun to an outsider, but those who are in on it will find that the attention to detail is an impossibly pleasing call to action. History and strategy unite in Europa Universalis IV in a way that few games are able to master. It certainly has problems with accessibility and presentation, but the deep gameplay, great lifespan and historical accuracy will be enough to justify the price of entry for any history boffs or strategy aficionados.

This game was reviewed on PC.

The game comes with several nations and scenarios already unlocked, and four available DLCs. However gamers have the option of shelling out an additional $10 for the Extreme edition, which offers additional DLC.

The full list of downloadable content at this time is as follows:

Call-to-Arms Pack:

• Winged Hussars Unit Pack DLC
• National Monuments DLC

Pre-Order Pack:

• The 100 Years War Unit Pack
• Expansion

Will you buy the Extreme Edition for the optional Downloadable content?

Europa Universalis IV is available on Mac, Linux and Windows via the Steam client. Steam is required for installation, multiplayer, and updates, but the basic single-player mode can be played outside of Steam.

Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio today announced that the empire-building game Europa Universalis IV will be released worldwide on August 13th, 2013.

Europa Universalis IV is the latest installment in the award-winning series with more than a million copies sold worldwide and will be available on PC, Mac, and Linux at launch.

The pre-order will follow three phases which will happen in June, July and August. Gamers who will pre-order the game this month will receive unique unit models to the nations of the 100 years war. There will also be 11 infantry models for England, France, Scotland, Burgundy and more.

Pre-order bonuses for July and August are still to be announced. We will keep you updated as soon as that happens.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more news and updates.

They have also announced in-game rewards for people who can recruit their friends. It’s all part of their initiative to get as many gamers interested in Europa Universalis 4 before it hits the PC in Q3 2013.

They have also released a new trailer that shows this in detail. You can sign up at Call to Arms site here. The developers had written an exclusive journal here on GamingBolt, and it gives some more idea on the game.

Check out the video below.

I do have a special love for our empire building series Europa Universalis and the team, we are all major fans of this series. We are a group who love playing Europa Universalis, both in singleplayer and in multiplayer together, so you could definitely say it is the favorite series for the people working on Europa Universalis IV.

For you unfamiliar with the series, Europa Universalis IV is a grand strategy game where you take on the role as the guiding hand behind a nation struggling for supremacy during 400 years of history.

My personal history with the Europa Universalis series franchise started many years ago, namely when I was in university and found this game called Europa Universalis.

This game was not like anything I’ve ever played before, I had played Civilization and Imperialism, but a game that actually had a historical world map and where even the smallest AI state played to win was something that fascinated me.
Then I learned that a sequel was coming out I managed to sneak my way into the beta. Not sure if I reported that many bugs, but I was pestering the devs about my pet peeves and even managed to write an historical event that was actually taken into the game, I was very proud.

Then later when I was looking for a job paradox was looking for a programmer and I started to work at a very cramped office in central Stockholm. After some other projects and moving office three times I got to work the sequel to my old favorite game, Europa Universalis III. Now several years later I get to stand here as the project lead for Europa Universalis IV, it’s been quite a ride.

Originally Europa Universalis I started development in 1997, Europa Universalis II in 2001, Europa Universalis III started in 2005, so we were overdue a new take on the game series.

During those years we’ve accumulated quite a lot of ideas, and discarded far more. We’ve come to understand what Europa Universalis is about for a lot of people, and what it means for ourselves.

During 2010 we spent a lot of time working on the design concepts, and late in 2011, the core team for Europa Universalis IV was assembled, and actual development started. We wanted to reconquer Europa Universalis, because the most exciting thing about a sequel is for us truly the ability to go back and do more with a game with the goal of taking it to the next level.

Creating a sequel for this game is of course a great challenge. It’s not only what the original game was but a huge part is also what Europa Universalis III grew into with all the expansions, from the first release to the fourth expansion. For every office multiplayer game and every time we went to the pub over the years, we came up with new ideas that generated yet another expansion. With the new expansions the game really morphed into something that a lot of us came to see as the ultimate strategy game.

The challenge in creating a sequel comes in keeping true to previous game and what it became, while giving all our fans enough that is new to make it feel that it is worth calling it a new game.

One important thing though, is that while we had lots of cool and interesting ideas for Europa Universalis we simply couldn’t just add them all in, as the game would become an unwieldy mass. Europa Universalis has a complexity level that we do not want to dramatically increase. We are happy with the level of complexity and want to keep it at this level. And while improving the interface can reduce it a fair bit, it is a very fine balance when it comes to designing a game.

So we took a step back and looked at what Europa Universalis was and what we wanted to do, and since it’s a new game, we had quite a large amount of flexibility. We could rewrite entire systems from scratch, and do some paradigm shifts.  One such example is the complete removal of the old trade system with centers of trade, which was replaced with a new trade system with dynamic flow of trade. This flexibility has been a great benefit when it comes to designing the game.

What we have done is that we have done a complete overhaul of the trade system, added a new monarch power system and a done a major rework of the diplomacy system. We have also taken a good look at most of the features, big and small. How well do they work with each other, which parts makes the game fun and which are more tedious.

In all our games we aim to have believable mechanics. When playing a Grand Strategy game it should be about immersion and suspension of disbelief. You should feel like you are playing a country in the time period. This is something all our Europa Universalis games have managed to achieve, and it is very important that Europa Universalis IV will have that same feeling.

And the first step was also the most painful for us on the team – the purge. Purging is when we remove features that simply are not good enough, or not as fun and exciting as we had hoped them to be when we thought of them, or that we feel stand in the way of a completely new system.  Sometimes you remove features because they are not good enough, and sometimes because you feel that they simply are not fun enough.

For example spies were present in Europa Universalis III, features that will not be around in Europa Universalis IV. Spies were removed along with the entire system for sending them to do covert actions. We felt that the mechanic wasn´t enjoyable enough. First, it came down to ‘click for random effect’, and, second, it had a negative effect on the game balance. At the same time we kept and developed the best bits of it, if you want to support rebels in your neighbor’s realm you send a diplomat to do it, only now you can choose exactly which type of rebel to support and how much money to give them.

Trust me when I say that it is hard for us to kill our darlings and let features go altogether. We have all lived and breathed the Europa Universalis series and we’ve invested time in creating the features we are now tossing aside. But sometimes you have to let go of features people have come to know and understand in order to make the overall game experience greater. No matter how hard it feels and no matter how your heart (or head) hurts… 😉

Read on for the full interview.

Rashid Sayed: For some of our users who are not quite exposed to grand strategy games such as these, can you please shed some light on the Europa Universalis franchise and why some PC gamers swear by it?

Chris King: Europa Universalis is a game about building your empire through trade, exploration, diplomacy and warfare during the age of discovery. What really makes the game series unique is that its scope coupled with its attention to historical detail where you can play any country in the world. Since every country is unique in its setup no two games will be the same.  Europa Universalis is grand strategy in truest sense of the word. You take control of a country and your steer it through 400 years of history. The game is a sand box, so there are no victory conditions as such. You as a player set your own goals and choose your own destiny. The world is your canvas and you can paint your own masterpiece.

Rashid Sayed: What is the expected size of maps and provinces in Europa Universalis IV? Are they going to bigger and better compared to what we saw in Victoria 2?

Chris King: We feel that for Western Europe the current number of provinces is about right, so we are looking at other parts of the world with an aim to bring them up to the Western European standard.

Rashid Sayed: Europa Universalis IV promises to feature complete customization and modding. What kind of modding tools will be available on launch?

Chris King: Our gamers have a strong mod community and we want to give them the tools to customize and mod Europa Universalis IV just as we want them to mod all our games. So we are naturally aiming to keep the same ability to Mod the game as in Europa Universalis III and our other games, we want to allow all our gamers to customize and mod practically anything they want.

Rashid Sayed: The game is running on an improved Clausewitz Engine (version 2.5). What changes have you made in the engine and how has this helped to bring in more new gameplay features?

Chris King: The Clausewitz Engine (version 2.5) improvements are most visible with the map, which we feel is a huge leap forward from the Europa Universalis III map. We are adding more life into the map with shadows, seasons and ambient objects to really give the player a vivid world.

The changes under the hood are more focused on speeding up development. This should still translate into a better game, because we can spend additional time testing and balancing features to make sure they work as well as we can make them.

Rashid Sayed: Can you please explain in detail how nation building works in Europa Universalis IV?

Chris King: In Europa Universalis IV, we have three elements to nation building. You have expansion through the acquision of more provinces. You can create buildings to improve your existing provinces and you have technological advances that make your provinces better, give you new buildings to build and better armies to go and conquer more provinces. This is the nation building at its most basic level.

Rashid Sayed: Monarch Power is something new that has been introduced in to the franchise. How does this new system actually work?  How does the leader’s trait affect gameplay?

Chris King: During the Europa Universalis time period, it was not a steady rise of countries. Some countries stagnated for a time while others had their moment in the sun. We didn’t want to arbitrarily say that because the year is X county Y will now stagnate for a while. So we decided to invest this in the person of the monarch. We feel this fits the period, when we talk about the rise of the Prussia we talk about Fredrick the Great, when you look at the advance of the Ottomans you also have a string of highly capable of Sultans.

The idea to use Monarch power in Europa Universalis IV is to influence major parts of game play, in particular technology advancement and the construction of buildings. If you have a strong monarch, you will receive more points so you will grow faster. A poor monarch and you will do this slower. Your country and what you’ve built stays the same, but the challenges facing you changes. Thus you will have an ebb and flow of countries, and although things may seem a bit grim at the moment you always know that you are one good monarch away from a comeback Elvis would have been proud of.

Rashid Sayed: Are you guys providing new economical options? If yes, we would love to know more about it.

Chris King: On the economic side our biggest change is an overhaul to the trade system. We have a system of trade nodes, a bit like the previous center of trade system where each province belongs to a trade node.  However the trade nodes now connect together through trade routes. Inside a trade node a country has power, which comes from one of three sources, either provinces, the presence of ships or a merchant.

Power can be used to either earn money or push income along the trade route. Trade routes also split at certain points, for example at the entrance to the red sea the trade can go either south round Africa or north towards Venice. A merchant present in one of these nodes can use your power to steer the trade in a particular direction. This new system completely changes the trade system by integrating it fully into the main game while giving you a new route to getting wealthy. Our goal is make trade integral to core game play, making a trade empire just as much as an option as a land empire.

Rashid Sayed: Have you thought of adding more dynamism to the war system? For example if one of the nations is an ally to you and if it decides to leave you in the middle of a war it will result in to prestige loss for that nation. 

Chris King: We are definitely looking at a different system were your choices in war will influence your relations with your partners. So if you make a separate peace your relations will suffer, fight to end and get a boost. Be generous and share the spoils of conquest with your allies and they will remember.

Rashid Sayed: The Total War franchise has always interested me. Personally I would love to see their offer and demand feature in Europa Universalis IV. It will give rise to complex peace treaties and a much more diplomatic relation with nations. Are we going to seeing something similar in Europa Universalis IV?

Chris King: More complicated negotiations between player and AI is something we think about, but we never do it and Europa Univeralis IV is the same. The main reason for us, which leads nicely into the next question is AI. The challenge of writing an AI that could use the system would demand so much development time that there would no time left for other features.

Rashid Sayed: What steps have the development team taken to improve the AI?

Chris King: The biggest thing we have done is in the realm of project planning for Europa Universalis IV. There is no magic silver bullet that makes an AI good, AI is job of continual improvement where with each iteration the AI gets better. We have planned the Europa Universalis IV project with a long tail, where we in the long run will focus on major game improvement. Part of this time will absolutely be devoted to the AI, going slowly through it improving the AI bit by bit.  The game is still early in development, but the development schedule leaves time for plenty of work on the AI to make it the very best we can and we intend to use ever second.

Rashid Sayed: There seems to be a concern among the community regarding how you guys will better Europa Universalis III. And their concern is legitimate in my opinion due to the sheer size of Europa Universalis III. It has too many features added over the years. How do you guys plan to better it all with Europa Universalis IV?

Chris King: We have 400 years of history and the whole world as our playground. I am convinced that there is no shortage of things we can do. A lot has happened since we released Europa Universalis III then and we felt it was time to take a look at what we’ve learnt through the games that we’ve produced since then, like Victoria II, Hearts of iron III, but also what the game has grown into with all the expansions and what we want Europa Universalis IV to be.

To look at one example, we have overhauled trade, which is has remained broadly unchanged since the original Europa Universalis. We felt now was the right time for a sequel, because we felt we were reaching the limits of how much we could cram into the current interfaces. Being able to rework these from scratch is a great position to be in.

Rashid Sayed: Accessibility is the key to sales. Considering such games are so complex, and created for hardcore PC gamers, have you guys stayed true to the gameplay design or have changed it a bit to appeal to a wider market?

Chris King: Well, I don’t agree with the position that our game is either mass market or complex. The biggest challenge a developer faces have is in interface design. Improvements to your interface allow you to keep the same level of complexity while at the same time broadening the appeal. With a new a game and the freedom it offers we can start from square one with the interface.

So we are looking to streamline the interface to help new and old players alike. To give two examples of this in Paradox Development Studio games – you have the outliner and alerts. Looking back on it I wonder how I played without them because they make the games so much easier to play.   One of our goals with Europa Universalis IV is to keep the complexity in the game, but at the same time make the game more intuitive and less complicated to get into for the player.

Rashid Sayed: Strategy games have historically stayed on the PC and personally I feel they best belong there. But given the dynamic nature of today’s gaming industry and the number of people who are adopting consoles (PS3/Xbox 360), are you guys eager to branch out Europa Universalis to more platforms?

Chris King: There are no plans at the moment to branch out to more platforms. Our main goal is to make Europa Universalis IV the best PC experience we can. We want this game to be an empire building game like no other.

About the game:

Prepare to join a worldwide community of over half a million players and experience the drama and tension that only the grand stage of history can provide.T he award-winning series that has sold over a million copies and redefined grand strategy gaming for a generation is back with unprecedented flexibility, new options for imperial management, and the same deep commitment to historical gameplay that has made Europa Universalis the legendary franchise it is today.

Europa Universalis 4 is due for the PC. It is published by Paradox Interactive.

Paradox Interactive has announced Europa Universalis IV. They have also announced that it will be releasing Q3 2013.

Here are a full list of features which you can check out below.

They announced this via their Twitch.tv stream.

•  Take your own decisions: Nation building is flexible: decide your own form of government, the structure of your society, trade politics and more. The possibilities are endless.

• Use your Monarch Power: Experience the new system of monarch power where your spread of choices is influence by the caliber of the man you have at the top. Do you have a warrior King? Then it is time to make war.
• Experience history coming to life: The great people and personalities of the past are on hand to support you. Thousands of historical events guide you, with unique different flavor depending on the country you play. Have more than a thousand historical leaders and over 4000 historical Monarchs at your disposal.
• The world is now your playground: Players can enjoy over 300 years of gameplay in a lush topographic map in full 3D. Lead any one of more than 250 countries that originally existed during the game’s extensive time span.
• Experience the all new trade system: The trade system adds a new dimension to the great trade empires of the period. Seize control of key ports to expand your trade, support it with your powerful fleet and the wealth of the world will flow to you.
• Bring out your diplomatic skills: Deeper diplomatic gameplay, with coalitions, threats, fleet basing rights and detailed support for rebels. Introducing unilateral opinions, a country may dislike you, but you can be neutral towards them.
• Engage in Multiplayer: Battle against your friends or try co-operative multiplayer mode that allows several players to work together to control a single nation for up to 32 players. Featuring hotjoin, improved chat, new matchmaking server andsupport for a standalone server.
• Create your own history & customize your game: Europa Universalis IV gives you the chance to customize and mod practically anything your heart may desire.

The game will also be displayed at GamesCom so expect some gameplay footage then.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more news and updates.

Via NeoGAF.