14 DAY TRIAL // One of the major aims of the coming Art of War expansion for Europa Universalis IV is to improve the map of the grand strategy title by adding a lot of provinces in all non-European areas and by introducing new nations that can be played or will emerge as time progresses.
In order to make the Chinese space more accurate, the team has to deal with smaller issues than for other areas mainly because the major shifts were small, even as history moved from the Ming empire to the political entities created by invaders over the centuries.
On the official forums, Paradox states, “There’s still large room for improvement: more accurate provincial borders, more strategic depth in those militarily important regions and adding the most important locations which were missing from the old map.”
The studio has sought to represent each real world province of the country as 4 to 6 in-game areas and to make sure that the most important towns are present and have the same amount of wealth that they produced in the real world.
Manchuria and Mongolia are more powerful now
For Manchuria, the developers at Paradox made the decision to represent the three Jurchen tribes and the addition of many new provinces means that each of them will be more powerful than the old representation of the faction.
Paradox adds, “These three divided countries may perhaps give the impression that they are small and weak, but the truth is that one of them - the Jianzhou Jurchens who raised and eventually created Qing - conquered and then ruled one of the largest empires of human history.”
There are also significant changes made to Mongolia, the Tibet and other outlying provinces of China.
The team is aiming to make the unified China a more powerful force in the world of Europa Universalis IV, while simultaneously making it easier for more minor nations to try and form the empire.
Art of War focuses on combat
The fact that the Art of War expansion is introducing major changes to the map of the Paradox-made grand strategy title does not mean that the mechanics are being ignored.
The studio wants warfare to be more interesting for the player, with a set of new options when it comes to coordination with allies and with more ways to quickly set terms for peace deals when actual conflict is over, while also changing how rebels behave.
