Paradox Interactive has revealed Europa Universalis V, their latest grand strategy sequel that is in development at Paradox Tinto, having gone under the codename Project Caesar for the past year or so.
No release date or window has been set just yet, but the game is now available to wishlist, to keep tabs on announcements through Steam
EU5 has been announced almost 12 years after EU4 arrived in August 2013, but even with all of the expansions and updates for the last game, this sequel promises to be no less deep and complex for ardent fans of the series. Still, Paradox has gone through their game, reconsidered a number of areas and mechanics, and reset the foundations for the coming decade. They’ve done this in tandem with the community, even so far as to founding Paradox Tinto five years ago and the team that was built around it.
There’s some key differences between the two games, some of which can be seen as drawing from other Paradox games released in the last few years.
- EU5’s start date is 1337, just before the outbreak of the Hundred Years War between England and France, and not long before the other outbreak that defined the era, with the Bubonic Plague set to sweep across Europe in the 1340s. The game continues on through to 1837.
- Time is broken down into ages, such as the Age of Discovery where you can colonise distant lands, giving you the opportunity to adopt Institutions that define the technology trees that you follow.
- There’s hundreds of millions of people being simulated across the world of EU5. Each province is now broken up into population units (POPS), similar to Victoria 3 and Imperator: Rome, each of which can have a different culture, religion, class and so on. Your fundamental job is to keep the fed, loyal and happy.
- Trade does away with merchants and trade nodes, but there is instead a system of regional markets that have their own borders and regions. Setup trade routes between nations, sell surplus goods, and be mindful of needs and desires from your buildings and pops.
- Societal Values see the return of policy sliders from earlier games, which were absent in EU4’s Ideas system. These sliders give your nation’s position between two opposing political values, with new sliders emerging as you progress through the ages.
- There’s no more “Mana” where you accumulate points for nebulous resources to spend on actions. Now your monarch and their advisors have skill ratings for Administrative, Diplomatic and Military and this will affect the eventual cost over time and speed of actions.
- Automation is a bigger part of EU5, letting you offload managing the economy, trade, building, production and more to an AI that is based on the same logic the computer controlled nations use. This is optional, and means that you can focus on what you find fun. If you want to micromanage, then you can, but if you want to focus on foreign policy and war, or deal more with events and major decisions, then you can do that too.
- Warfare now has the military formations of Imperator: Rome, adding a tactical layer to your army set ups. Armies can be given directives for how to act in times of war – make a beeline to set up castle sieges, for example – and resource control is a major factor in how long you can go to war for, taking the resources and production away from a nation you’re invading.
We’ve been hands on with Europa Universalis 5, saying in our preview, “Europa Universalis 5 remains a deep and complex historical grand strategy game, and it certainly looks to build and integrate, not only idea that came from a decade of updates and expansions to EU4, but also to some of the more fundamental shifts and ideas that we saw in Victoria 3 and Imperator: Rome. Importantly, there is that on-ramp for newcomers, with the deeper automation set to lift some of the burdens of leaning the ropes, at the same time as lifting some of the micromanagement that can become a chore deeper into a campaign.”
