14 DAY TRIAL // The Wealth of Nations expansion for Europa Universalis IV is set to launch at some point during the spring and we have a very revealing exclusive interview with Thomas Johansson, the project lead working on it at Paradox Development Studio.
Softpedia: How did the ideas that power the Wealth of Nations expansion for Europa Universalis IV come about and why is the team focusing on trade?
Thomas Johansson: It's been quite a few years since we released Europa Universalis III, but as you probably know the empire building game Europa Universalis is truly the game that created Paradox Development Studio. We have never stopped playing the game series and we kept make expansions and patches for the previous game. So over the years, ideas start to develop of about what you would do if you could do it over again and some of these things were a bit too big for an expansion or a patch.
Trade, for example, was one of those systems that had not changed much since the original Europa Universalis, so it was ripe for a rework in Europa Universalis IV. We sought to tie control of provinces, merchants and navies into a single system. The new system completely changed the trade system by integrating it fully into the main game while giving you as a player a new route to getting wealthy. Our goal was to make trade integral to core game play, making a trade empire just as much as an option as a land empire. Trade is so vital for the game balance and once we started sketching on a new way of trading, we found that we had something that would really change the dynamic of a Europa Universalis game.
And since trade is so central as a generator of wealth and a driver of conflict, we really wanted to improve it and explore it even further, exploring more possibilities with the expansion and to see what we could do to make the wealth of the world flowing into your coffers even more intriguing.
Softpedia: Is there a feeling that some players might be uninterested in playing the trade game and are focusing instead on diplomacy and on war?
Thomas Johansson: Well, we always want people to play with the parts of the game that they get fascinated in. There will always be players that prefer to focus on certain aspects of our game; that´s the beauty of freedom to choose. And, of course, in Europa Universalis IV, the nation you have will influence which strategies are useful for you. If you are a small coastal nation, it wouldn’t make much sense to ignore trade. But if you are a big inland nation, ignoring trade in favor of production would be a more viable option.
However, in Wealth of Nations, we are adding a bit of symbiosis between wealthy trading republics and nations that does not focus on trade. The more trade republics trade in your area then the more efficient your economy will be. You will also be able to use covert diplomatic action to create trade conflicts and explore new diplomatic ways to justify and force trade conflicts against your competition
Softpedia: Will privateers allow smaller states to have a break the stranglehold that major powers tend to have on sea trade?
Thomas Johansson: Smaller states can definitely hire privateers that will steal trade from their competitors by leaching trade into a pirate nation. Privateers will not directly make the smaller nation richer, but will hurt the trade of the bigger nation and thus giving the smaller nation an advantage. Using privateers instead of regular traders will influence the trade situation beyond the regular trading strength of the ships, though you get no money from it – it’s a tool to hurt your enemies. But the use of privateers is a bit of a risk, since it may give the competitors a just cause for war.
Softpedia: an you offer a little detail on the way Trade Companies will work in Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations?
Thomas Johansson: The idea of trade companies is to strengthen your trade network and reach faraway lands and offer players a way to specialize into global spanning dedicated trading empires. We have divided East Asia into trade company regions. Any provinces the players hold there can be assigned to the local trading company. If the player chooses to do that, the province will be virtually worthless when it comes to tax and manpower but much better when it comes to trade.
There is also the added factor that if your trade company is dominant in the local trading area you will gain an extra merchant. This way, as you expand your trading empire, you can focus its strength in one area and by doing that you gain extra leverage to extend it even further.
Softpedia: What are the biggest changes that are being made to the trade routes on the geographical map?
Thomas Johansson: At the moment, we haven’t planned any major changes in that area. But you never know with these things. We spend a lot of time playing our own game and coming up with modifications as we go along.
Softpedia: How will the new mechanics and the randomized America introduced in Conquest of Paradise interact?
Thomas Johansson: I don’t really foresee any major impact to the random new world, because all of the new features will work just as well in a random America as a not so random America. The exception is that Trade Companies only exist within their defined regions, and these are Asian - none in the Americas.
Softpedia: Any plans to also make Africa or even Asia randomized, at least to some extent?
Thomas Johansson: No plans for that currently, but I’m not ruling out anything ;) What makes America as such a great candidate for this is that it was fairly isolated from anything else at the time. It changes the gameplay a lot more once nations like the Mamluks or China are randomized. Nations that Europe was in contact with at the time knew about southern Africa or the East Indies to some extent; we don’t speak of people “discovering” the Philippines for a reason.
Softpedia: What effect will having a trade capital have for those nations who own a seaport and will it make it harder to play as a landlocked European power?
Thomas Johansson: I don’t think it will be harder to be landlocked. If anything, it will be easier since you can relocate to main trading point once you get a coastline. You can designate a specific port as your main trade capital, separately from your country’s capital, in a coastal province within the same continent. In fact, the impetus for this change came from the fact that a standard tactic for the Polish player is to conquer the Teutonic order and then move the capital to Danzig. The main effect this feature is going to have is that it’s easier the reconfigure your trading strategy. As France, you can go for an Atlantic or a Mediterranean strategy, for example.
We are also improving trading in inland nodes. Merchants placed in inland trade nodes will get increased bonus in proportion to your country’s trade efficiency and will increase your possibilities to trade in faraway inland trade nodes.
Softpedia: Does the company have plans to support Europa Universalis IV in the same extensive way it has supported Crusader Kings II?
Thomas Johansson: Yes, absolutely! We aim to release many expansions and with each expansion, our goal is to have a large patch that also adds new content and new gameplay features for free. Our games at Paradox Development Studio have such a great longevity with players and from our perspective that we always tend to go back and play around with our older games. Because of this, we have long searched for a strategy where the games can live as long in the company as long as it lives with the players. With the strategy we started with Crusader Kings 2, we think we have found it.