With Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV’s cadence of expansions, I find myself hard pressed to make room in my life for other games. It could be worse, of course. I could be hooked on games that aren’t impressive grand strategy affairs where I can manipulate the world like a Machiavellian super villain.
Europa Universalis IV’s latest expansion, Wealth of Nations, drops today. It boasts big changes to trade and includes trading powers like the East India Company, which can rule foreign provinces. Hopefully better than the actual East India Company.
While Wealth of Nations allows for the creation of trading companies, the carving of land to create canals and join seas together and many new excuses for long, bloody wars, Paradox has updated the base game as well.
So you don’t need to spend £7.99/$9.99 on the new expansion to see all of the improvements; plenty of them have been tossed in for free.
Take a gander at the full patch notes to see what you can get with or without the expansion.
Rob and I got to take a sneak peek at an early version back in January, and it certainly sounded like Paradox was serious about making trade a big deal again. EUIV has an improved trade model over its predecessors, certainly more intuitive, but it was very hard to focus on trade – as many nations did – without becoming an easy target for the conquest-hungry empires. Wealth of Nations could change this. Which is good news for merchant republics.
Both Europa Universalis IV and the “Extreme Edition” are 75 percent off right now on Steam, serendipitously.